Into the Longbox

As any one knows, I'm a huge Black Panther fan. As far as the comic books, I have all the issues from each volume of his solo series. This may exclude a mini-series here and there. This book and the Fantastic Four are the only books I buy, regardless of the creative team. Other books I drop in and out, but these two are my constants.  Before I dive in, let me say this about the Black Panther comics and I will be honest. They are hit and miss. There is no consistency because each writer wants to put their own spin on him. Sure, some grand ideas may carry over, but that is it. I will say that the Christopher Priest run is the definitive run of Black Panther and it was that run that made me love the character. I didn't care about Black Panther before reading that run in the mid-2000s. The past few years, Marvel has done right by the Black Panther by having black writers handle his solo series. The last couple of years were written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It started out as an intrigui...

Welcome to a special post of Into the Longbox. Why is this special? Well, this mini-series starring the Thing combines two of my favorite things. The Thing from the Fantastic Four and one of my new favorite writers, Walter Mosley. A few years ago I read "Devil in a Blue Dress" and was so impressed that I've been working my way through his books. Specifically the Easy Rawlins novels for right now. I bring this all up because he is a black author of well renown, writing a comic book about one of my favorite characters. I couldn't have paired this combo any better than if I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I might have mentioned before that I am always hesitant when an author or a celebrity steps into the comics world to write a comic book. Before getting my hands on this book, I read an interview with Mosley which you can find  here . What impressed me is he spoke to why he liked the Thing and something clicked inside me that explained why The Thing appeals to m...

My review will be as lazy as this movie. Zing. As sure as the sun will rise everyday, I will go to see a Marvel movie. This was only the third movie I've seen in theaters this year and since the pandemic started. It's no surprise that those three movies were "Black Widow", "F9" and now this.  I was EXTREMELY skeptical of this movie. Marvel is now navigating the fringes of their catalogue since they burned through all their top sellers. This is minus X-Men and Fantastic Four properties, which they now own now. This movie seemed like way more of a reach than Guardians of the Galaxy. I was not going to see it, but of course, like I said before, it's a Marvel movie. I have a moral obligation to go see it. So how was it? It was fine. Not great. Not terrible. There was some marvel-ness in it with the humor and the wise cracking heroes. I'll touch back on this a little later. It also was a movie that was a good stand alone. It's in the Marvel Universe, ...

I have no excuse for why I haven't talked about this up until now. I watched each episode as it came out and it definitely left an impression. Now I have to sit here and try to think about how I felt a few weeks ago, but I will do my best. Overall, I really enjoyed the show. It took me a while to get into the animation style, but after a while, I accepted it. What helped was having a strong voice acting cast. They included as many as the original actors as they could legally get. The most touching for me was hearing Chadwick Boseman reprise T'Challa a few more times. I felt those performances. This show is in the tradition of the comics, with the twist being that it is focused on the movie properties. I get that because that is what people know and is the best hook for drawing people in. In the comics, it is a concept that allowed Marvel to take some wild swings at pivotal moments in their history. In this show, they cherry pick what they think are some big moments from the mov...

Look, I realize this show is like ten years old. However, Netflix saw fit to inform me of it being available a few months ago and I had to watch it. I vaguely remember this being some kind of experiment that Marvel and Madhouse embarked upon back in the early part of the LAST decade. Anime was getting even more hot, you see and Marvel had to get a piece of that action. Cause...Marvel. I definitely dismissed it then and I kind of dismissed it now, but given my uncanny (see what I did there) ability to watch just about it anything, I made myself watch this. If nothing else I was curious. Well, it's definitely an anime. It made me go through some complex feelings that I'm going to work out here. First off, I didn't like this. At all. At first I was trying to think, "Am I just not that into anime any more like I used to be?" or "Would I have liked this ten years ago when it came out?" I still like anime, but I don't consume it as much as I used to and I ...

Once again, I know I am late on sharing my thoughts. Anyways, let's get on with it. I saw Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings almost two weeks ago, on a temporary release from child care that my wife gave me. I picked a theater where I knew there would be no one and at a time no one is going. I'm still not comfortable going to a theater full of people.  In case you didn't know, this is the latest Marvel movie in the long running cinematic universe. Did I like it? Is the sky blue? Yes, yes I did. Not because I'm a Marvel zombie, but because I legitimately thought it was a good film. When I was finished, what struck me the most is how different it felt from other Marvel movies. There are small ties to the larger MCU with some cameos here and there, but otherwise it is detached from all that continuity. That makes it refreshing. We also get some straight up Martial arts which puts it in the league of Captain America: Winter Soldier as the best hand to hand action we...

I'm back again to talk about a book that covers an identity I am not a part of. Look, I read things and I want to talk about them. My hopes is that they will interest you in them too. With that being said, let me talk about "Marvel Voices: Identity #1". There has been a number of these kind of issues and there will be more. I will attempt to talk about each of them. So this particular issue focuses on characters of Pacific-Asian-Islander descent. Let's not ignore the fact that Shang-Chi is out in theaters, so the time was ripe to do something like this. Understandably, he gets the opening story in this book. There are other books I need to pick up in this Marvel Voices line, but at least with the Pride on and this one, I feel like they are getting better curated. My main complaint about the Pride issue was how many characters they packed in and how it felt like Marvel was going to pull a muscle in their shoulder from patting themselves on the back so much. The entire ...