Into the Longbox

Wow. Let me tell you why I feel that this show has the best Superman we've had on screen. Initially, I was not sold on Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch as Superman and Lois when they first appeared in Supergirl and during that big Infinite Crisis crossover event that ran through all the CW shows. I am glad that I was so wrong.  If there is one problem with Superman, is how can you have him be threatened when he is so powerful? One answer is to give him a family. Now, given all his power, he can't be there ALL the time and he has to juggle between saving the world and his family. That struggle becomes very apparent early and often in this series. I think that choice makes Superman instantly more compelling. I won't rush to say relatable, but it gives him more real world problems that he can't punch his way through. The fact that I recently became a father also probably plays into why I love this take on Superman. It lines up with what I think was the best run of Supe...

Ah yes. The Suicide Squad. I know it did well at the box office, but I'm shocked they got another go at this particular set of characters. Even more surprising is that they lured James Gunn over to direct. Clearly they wanted some of that Marvel-ness injected into their movies. I don't think that is debatable. Did it work? Well, to me, not really. This is a vastly superior movie to the first Suicide Squad, but I have a couple of problems with this film. I'm going to go in no particular order. Scope. I don't like the scope of this movie. When this particular set of characters are squaring off against Starro, you've gone in the wrong direction. That is a Justice League level villain, not the Suicide Squad. These movies are better served with the characters doing black ops operations against more normal humans. The final battle is ridiculous in all the wrong ways, I feel.  Last movie they fought a powerful witch, this movie a five story tall alien. That does not fit at...

This is another post that is going to feel very dated because this is already happening. The imprint, "Milestone" is back at DC and after years of talking about it, they have finally brought it back. In a nutshell, Milestone was created back in 1993 by a couple of black artists and writers as a way to diverse comic books, which was severely lacking at the time. I had a long post talking about my complicated history with Milestone. I have scrapped that and will spare you all of that. In summary, as a kid getting into comics, I didn't give it a chance because while I wanted more black super heroes, I wanted them in one of the big two, Marvel or DC. To me, they were not legitimate enough. So I never gave them a chance until I was much older. It is something that I regret.  As an adult, I got into them and realize how special it truly was. I could also trust that because it was created by black creators, what I was getting was authentic. Not some white guy's interpretati...

Once again, life has gotten in the way and I have yet to give my thoughts on this show, which I finished months ago. I will summarize this show. It is show created by Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt. It also starts Patton Oswalt as the titular character.  Think of it as being in the same vein as Robot Chicken. If you're not familiar with THAT show, then think stop motion animation.  It is ten episodes long and at 30 minutes an episode, digestible enough to make it east to binge in a short amount of time.   My feelings on it? I liked it, but did not love it. It is  funny given it's tone and the genius of Oswalt's voice acting. They do assemble a pretty good voice cast around him and it is fun to watch the shenanigans of a super villain and his villainous empire or lack thereof.  There are definitely a good amount of funny gags, but at ten episodes, not everything is going to be a winner. I mentioned before how you could binge it, but I found myself only being ...

A few weeks ago I finally got around to watching, "The New Mutants". As it is a comic book based movie AND in the X-Men universe, I am obligated to watch. This is the service I provide to YOU, dear reader. I will spare you all the details about how troubled the production on this movie was and dive right in. Right off the top, this is a bad movie. It's a shame because you have some good actors that have gone on to become bigger names. In this movie, you have a mutants with varying powers and they are confined to a house to make it a like a locked room mystery. This is a gross misuse of these characters to confine them to a setting like this. I didn't look into it, but I can suspect that maybe budget was one issue. If you don't have the money to do these characters right, you shouldn't do them at all. I say this because they chose the characters that have different iconic displays of powers.  I don't have a problem with the characters they chose. I actually...

Marvel has been pumping out the content on Disney+ this year and right on the heels of Loki finishing up, we get the animated, "What If...?" series. The first episode explored the scenario where Sharon Carter became Captain America instead of Steve Rogers. It was pretty good. However, I don't think they went far enough with the premise. It didn't feel different enough from the first Captain America movie. I'm happy to report that the events of the second episode, "What if T'Challa became a Star Lord?" was very different and more fully realized the potential of this show. I will do my best to avoid  spoilers. At first, the idea of this premise seemed dumb to me, not going to lie. A few minutes in, I immediately accepted it and was all in for this ride. I want to start off by saying this episode was a little emotional for me. Not cause of the content, but because this is the last time we hear Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa. He recorded this before he...

In this blog, I try to write about books that I enjoy. I am your resident comic book nerd, so I want to use my tiny platform to speak to that. My favorite thing to do is to give a hot take on something. Most of the time they are positive. In rare occasions they will be negative. This book, "M.O.M.: Mother of Madness" is that book.  This book is co-written by Emilia Clarke. We know her as Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. I am always glad when a famous person wants to come into the comic book world. It can only bring exposure and potentially more fans. It gives us a wider pool of things to read. I feel the same about famous novelists, writers for popular magazines, etc. However, the pitfall of this is that you have these newbies coming into this medium alongside people that trained for it, appreciate it and know how it works. There is a degree of craft that  these new writers will not get. That can become very apparent. I say all that to temper what I am about to say ab...