Into the Longbox

Wow, am I late in writing this. I finished Loki weeks ago, but forgot to mention any of my thoughts on it. I'll save you my usual rambling before my review and just get into it. You can stop when you've had enough! I really liked Loki and that surprised me. After the first two episodes, I was on the fence because things were moving so slowly. It eventually picked up and concluded with what I thought was the best final episode in all the Marvel shows. This show delivered on the promise to have major implications for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Let me talk about what this show isn't. There are some action scenes in this series, but this is not an action show, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier was. Not even a little bit. I would dare argue the action in this show isn't really that good, but that's okay. That is not this show's bread and butter. What the show turned out to be, is a wonderful introspection about Loki himself. Now this is not the Loki we got to k...

I know that Pride month ended a few weeks ago, but just before that I started to read Marvel Voices: Pride #1 . I am just late in making this post. This issue in the vein of the DC Pride book I talked about a few weeks ago. When it comes to Marvel and DC, comparisons are always unavoidable. Like the DC book, I wanted to support what Marvel was doing for Pride month. Marvel has been doing special issues like this to showcase under represented communities via characters and their creators. So how did I feel about Marvel's foray into this? Let's get into that.  First off, like I said with the DC book, I know a little something about representation and how it matters. However, I can't speak to how this book will feel to those in the LGBTQ community. I can only speak to what I see here. This issue is massive and I would argue overstuffed. The DC book was a book about their characters as part of a day in the life. There is a deft to the story telling there that I think is missin...

A few days ago I was able to go back to the theater for the first time since early 2020, the pre-pandemic days. It was nice. I don't have much more to say other than it was nice to watch a movie in a theater. I'm glad that Black Widow was that first movie back. Let's jump straight into it. I really liked this movie for a number of reasons. Before I get into that, I want to say first that this movie was a long time coming. Even if it came out last year as intended, it was still a long overdue. It is a shame that after Marvel pretty much killed Black Widow off in Avengers: Endgame, that we get this movie. The potential for stories was always there, but Marvel didn't pull the trigger. This movie felt more in line with Captain America: Winter Soldier. We're back to government run spy programs and intrigue. I will say that it is pretty telling that it's always the Russians that are the bad guy. I would like to see these movies face the fact that the US isn't much...

  I think it goes without saying, that representation matters. We all like to see ourselves reflected in the media we consume. Whether that is movies, music, comic books, novels, etc. For me, since this is a comic book blog after all, I'm going to go with comic books. In the past, I've immediately written a post about a comic that impacted me in a specific way that I felt I should share with people. This happened last night and this morning as I read two different offerings from DC. I know historically, people see me as a DC hater and a total Marvel fanboy. Those descriptions aren't completely invalid, but the misconception is that I somehow hate DC. I like DC a lot. I just prefer Marvel more. The books I'm going to talk about that I have pictured above are some of the reasons why I like DC. Now they eternal cynic in me would want to dismiss such offerings because a savvy company will have their finger to the pulse of a moment in history and try to capitalize on it. It...

I know I am late to the party on this post. I meant to say something sooner, but that's life. So let's talk about the show Invincible, that appeared on Amazon Prime. From what I can remember in reading the comic, it is very faithful. Simultaneously, it evolved with the times in some of the roles of the characters. There are other sites out there to do that work for you. I'm not going to do that here.  I thought this show is excellent. The comic itself was excellent, so that translated into a great show. I think the biggest thing that will jump out is the great talent they assembled for the voice acting. I'm happy to see Steven Yuen getting his due this year and he was the perfect choice for the main character, Mark Grayson. I am convinced that J.K. Simmons can do no wrong and he is perfect here as Mark's Father, Nolan. He has an underlying menace throughout this whole first season that you can just feel. Also, I'm glad they gave Sandra Oh plenty to do.  The rest...

  I just finished the sixth episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier on Disney Plus. I wanted to write this as soon as I could because I want to do this while my feelings are fresh. I had big feelings about the last two episodes. When this series first started, all I wanted was for them to address the impact of having a black Captain American and how Sam Wilson handles that responsibility. We got a snippet of that when Rhodey and Sam speak for a few minutes in the first episode. On it's face, it seemed like a simple conversation. However, it was dripping with a lot of subtext. Basically, Rhodey was trying to tell him that if Sam doesn't take up the shield, that Cap hand picked him for, the Government would get their own guy and it would not be a black man. In the second episode, we meet Isaiah Bradley and we touch on race a little bit more there. We even have a scene where the policy are called and they almost arrest Sam. If it wasn't for his fame, he would have been tr...

Let me tell you why the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is the best book you have never read. I have been wanting to write this post for a while, but I had to wait until I finished both volumes. While I think her initial origins are silly and maybe her power set is ridiculous, what this book does is place her at the middle of many funny adventures. It also proves her to be a very capable super hero. As she likes to say, she eats nuts and kicks butts. There is a whole supporting cast that is fleshed out around her and each of them are funny in their own ways. Specifically her squirrel, Tippy-Toe, that has a distinctive pink bow so that you will always find her in every panel. I should also mention that she can talk to squirrels, so you will see them interacting with each other, while the rest of the world cannot understand them. What really makes this book work is the writing of Ryan North and the art of Erica Henderson and Derek Charm. One of North's gimmicks is to have these little edito...