Avenger | the m0vie blog

Kurt Busiek’s and George Perez’s Avengers – Avengers/JLA (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Darren

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

Read our review of The Avengers here.

Avengers/JLA is about as nerdy as a comic book crossover can get. Really. It takes two teams of superheroes which were both formed to allow existing heroes to team up… and then teams those two teams up. It’s pure geek chic, after all. I have no shame in admitting that I enjoyed on a purely fanboyish level, my inner eight-year-old ecstatic at the idea of taking so many toys out of so many different boxes and bashing them together which such delightful cheer. It’s not an essential story, nor a brilliant one, nor a creative one – but it does exactly what it says on the tin. It gives us a gigantic crossover between two of the more recognisable Marvel and DC superhero teams.

The very definition of awesome...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, avengers jla, avengers/jla, batman, Busiek, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, crossover, dc comics, dc universe, george perez, hugo weaving, iron man, jla avengers, jla/avengers, joss whedon, justice league of america, kurt busiek, marvel, marvel comics, marvel universe, marvel/dc, Perez, retrospective, review, superman, World War Hulk | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Avengers (aka Avengers Assemble)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Darren

The Avengers has a lot of geeky charm to it – the sort of giddy “this is so cool!” spectacle that appeals to the popcorn-munching child in each of us. That’s more than enough help it coast through a somewhat muddled first act, through a stronger second act and into a truly awesome finale. I think that the carefully choreographed large-scale action sequence that caps the film off might be worth a ticket alone. While there seem to be some very fundamental problem juggling a cast this large in a movie that technically a sequel to at least four films, Joss Whedon knows his audience well enough to ensure that most of the individual moments are satisfying, even if the overall film feels a tad uneven.

Three of a kind...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Avenger, avengers, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, film, hulk, iron man, IronMan, joss whedon, loki, marvel, marvel comics, Movie, Movies, nick fury, non-review review, premiere, review, robert downey, thor, tom hiddleston, Whedon, Zak Penn | 36 Comments »

Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – New Avengers Vol. 7 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Darren

Read our review of The Avengers here.

And so, this is it. The end of Brian Michael Bendis’ first run on New Avengers. And, to the writer’s credit, it actually feels like an ending – something you very rarely get in mainstream comics, particularly when the writer’s going to be producing another book the following month. While I’ve had more than a few issues with the individual chapters in Bendis’ run, I think his New Avengers holds together remarkably well when examined as one big story – because it is one big story. The issues are paragraph breaks in the arcs, which are themselves chapters in the unfolding epic Bendis was weaving through the heart of the Marvel Universe, a bold attempt to redefine “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”for the twenty-first century.

Happily ever after?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, bendis, brian michael bendis, green goblin, Hood, iron man, joss whedon, marvel, marvel comics, ms. marvel, new avengers, nick fury, spider man | 2 Comments »

Mighty Avengers: Dark Reign (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Darren

Read our review of The Avengers here.

Dan Slott’s Mighty Avengers is so distinct from Brian Michael Bendis’ run on the second Avengers flagship book that it might as well have been a different title. Indeed, the name (and, arguably, the use of thought balloons) represent perhaps the only ties to the second major Avengers title. While still defined by it, the status quo has little to do with the aftermath of Civil War, and the lineup is markedly different. In a way, you could argue that Bendis and Slott had similar goals with the title: an attempt to tell more bombastic and traditional Avengers stories, with high stakes and a global focus, in contrast to the relatively “urban” feel of Bendis’ New Avengers. There’s no denying, however, that Slott handles the nostalgia and conventional superheroics with far more aplomb than his predecessor.

Not so Mighty...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, bendis, brian michael bendis, captain america, Dan Slott, dark reign, Henry Pym, marvel universe, mighty avengers, Mighty Avengers: Dark Reign, new avengers, Scarlet Witch, stan lee, United States | 2 Comments »

Kurt Busiek’s Avengers – Avengers Forever (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Darren

Read our review of The Avengers here.

In many ways, to me, Kurt Busiek’s Avengers run represents comic book nostalgia given form. I can’t help but read it as an attempt to call back to the “good old days” of mainstream comic books, with all the illogical and insane twists and an old-school approach to dialogue and characterisation. On the best of days, I’ve found his approach giddy and enjoyable – it’s hard not to get caught up in his genuine enthusiasm for the material. However, when Marvel gave Busiek a twelve-issue Avengers miniseries, it seemed inevitable that the writer wouldn’t just seek to nostalgically emulate the past, but tie it all together as well. In this respect, as it weaves through decades of Avengers continuity, Avengers Forever feels almost like continuity porn. Hardcore continuity porn.

Avengers! Avenge!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes, avengers forever, captain america, carlos pacheco, comic book, comic book continuity, Comics, continuity, Henry Pym, iron man, joss whedon, kurt busiek, lockout, marvel, Marvel Comic, marvel comics, retrospective, review | 1 Comment »

Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – Dark Avengers (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Darren

Dark Avengers actually reads quite well as a self-contained volume. It’s relatively short, running sixteen issues (fourteen of which are collected here, with the other two collected in Utopia) and an annual. It sits between two gigantic crossovers, Secret Invasion and Siege, so it isn’t as frequently derailed as Bendis’ New Avengers was (or even Mighty Avengers was). Instead, it feels like a nice little self-contained chapter in the epic superhero saga that Bendis has been writing for quite some time, dating back to the first issue of New Avengers, an exploration of the modern superhero myth in this cynic world so keen to deconstruct our idols in the wake of classics like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s a clever and succinct summary of the themes the author has been exploring, in a fun and dynamic sort of way.

Maybe it should be called “Moodily-lit Avengers”…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: anti-heroes, Avenger, avengers, bendis, brian michael bendis, comic books, Comics, dark avengers, dark knight returns, green goblin, iron man, iron patriot, joss whedon, marvel, mighty avengers, Molecule Man, new avengers, nick fury, norman osborn, secret invasion, spider man, tony stark | 2 Comments »

Kurt Busiek’s (& George Perez’s) Avengers – Avengers Assemble! Vol. 2 (Ultron Unlimited) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Darren

I want to enjoy Kurt Busiek’s Avengers run. It’s apparently one of the better Avengers runs out there. In fact, I can actually see the reasons why one would fall in love with it. It has great characters, great villains and great stories, written by a writer who adores the subject matter and an artist who is among the best in the business. And yet I can’t help but feel locked out of the series, as if this is a book intended for those who like a particular style of old comics – rather than those seeking accessible and fresh takes on classic characters coming together to fight evil. This second volume is perhaps the highlight of the run, collecting – as it does – the Ultron Unlimited storyarc, perhaps regarded as Busiek’s finest hour on the title (with only Avengers Forever and The Kang Dynasty competing, depending on who you ask).

Boy, is his face red...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, avengers assemble!, avengers forever, Busiek, captain america, Comics, continuity, george perez, hank mccoy, Henry Pym, iron man, joss whedon, kang dynasty, kurt busiek, marvel, marvel comics, nostalgia, Scarlet Witch, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the beast, Triune Understanding, ultron, ultron unlimited | Leave a comment »

Kurt Busiek’s (& George Perez’s) Avengers – Avengers Assemble! Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Darren

It is good to be together again.

– Thor, Once An Avenger…

A lot of life is context. In order to fully appreciate things, you need to know the history and events which drive it. Kurt Busiek’s massive almost-five-year run on The Avengers is well loved by comic book fans, but is quite hard for me to get a read on. The plots are simple, the cast is over-crowded and the dialogue is corny. However, these are perhaps the reasons why the run is held in such high esteem, because the fictional Marvel Universe of 1998 was quite different from how it looks today.

Consider them assembled... all of them...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, avengers assemble!, comic book, comic books, george perez, iron man, joss whedon, kurt busiek, marvel, Marvel Comic, marvel comics, marvel universe, once an avenger, Rob Liefeld, Scarlet Witch, thor, villains | Leave a comment »

The Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch Omnibus (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Darren

The Ultimates got me into comics. I’d read a couple beforehand, of course, and picked up a stray issue in the nineties, but it was The Ultimates that convinced me that superhero comic books could be something bold and innovative and clever, rather than generic and plain. Looking back, I think that The Ultimates stands as one of Marvel’s crowning accomplishments of the last decade, with only New X-Men and Daredevil ever really coming close. A lot of people argue that it’s the cynical world view that sets Mark Millar’s origin story apart, and gives it a broad appeal, but I’d disagree.

I think that Millar’s story doesn’t work because it dismantles the conventional superhero narrative through glib nihilism and cool apathy, but rather because it vindicates that ideal by passing it through a crucible. In many ways, The Ultimates is perhaps the most optimistic superhero story I’ve ever read, if only because the idealism is truly earned.