captain america | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Darren

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow evokes pulp science-fiction cinema with an earnestness and an eagerness that is endearing, if not infectious. Although the special effects have dated significantly in the time since the movie’s release, it’s hard not to admire director Kerry Conron’s use of computer graphics to forge a connection to classic cinema. However, one senses that Conron might have been better suited to emulate the mood, rather than merely the appearance, of these old adventure serials. The problem is that despite its rather wonderfully crafted appearance, there’s never anything in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow to really get excited about. And that’s a shame.

A ray of hope?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, arts, captain america, CaptainMarvel, Collecting, Conran, Father's Day, film, games, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Williams, jude law, Kerry Conran, Laurence Olivier, michael gambon, Movie, New York City, non-review review, orson welles, Retro-futurism, review, Sky Captain, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, superman, United States, video games | 11 Comments »

Avengers Disassembled: Iron Man – The Singularity (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Darren

And so I’ve finished my trek through the tie-ins to Avengers Disassembled. And it was surprisingly painful. Sure, Robert Kirkman’s Captain America at least made sense if you looked at it from the right angle, and Mike Oeming’s Thor was one of the best stories to feature the character, but the Invincible Iron Man and Captain America & Falcon tie-ins serve to illustrate just how lost some of Marvel’s top books were at the time. The Invincible Iron Man actually had two arcs tying into the big event, from two very different creative teams, perhaps illustrating that Marvel was aware of this fundamental dysfunction. Unfortunately, neither is especially impressive, and both feel like they are simply treading water, waiting for Avengers Disassembled to put the book out of its misery.

Things look Stark…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, captain america, Invincible Iron Man, iron man, joss whedon, MarvelUniverse, robert kirkman, thor, Tony, tony harris, warren ellis | 2 Comments »

Avengers Disassembled: Captain America & Falcon (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Darren

If any of the Avengers: Disassembled tie-ins make a case for the drastic shake-up that took place amid Marvel’s Avengers-themed titles in 2004, it’s probably Captain America & Falcon. By the time the tie-in to the event began, the book was only on its fifth issue, but it had already found time for the juvenile and shallow conspiracy-theory mongering that would make John Nay Rieber and Chuck Austen’s Captain America proud. Still stuck in a hamfisted attempt to tie into the post-9/11 zeitgeist, the book offers some of the worst examples of comic book storytelling at Marvel at a time when their Avengers line wasn’t particularly strong to begin with.

Not a smashing success…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, captain america, Christopher Priest, Chuck Austen, Daily Bugle, ed brubaker, Falcon, J. Jonah Jameson, United States | Leave a comment »

Avengers Disassembled: Thor (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Darren

Thor: Disassembled is easily the strongest solo arc to stem from the events in Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Disassembled. It’s full of interesting and clever ideas about the nature of stories, and serves to wrap up Thor’s story fairly efficiently, leading into the big reshuffle of the Marvel Universe. Rather than merely treading water waiting for J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor, writer Mike Avon Oeming takes advantage of the unique set of circumstances before him to present that rarest type of superhero story: one with an ending.

Thunderbolts and lightening, very, very frighteningly…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Asgard, Avenger, brian michael bendis, captain america, dark knight returns, Fandral, green lantern, J. Michael Straczynski, Jane Foster, loki, MarvelUniverse, Mjolnir, spider man, thor, Volstagg | 1 Comment »

Avengers Disassembled: Iron Man – Turf War (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Darren

It’s probably true that in comics, like in any other medium, you have a preference towards the stories that brought you into that medium. While I think Marvel was doing some truly exceptional stuff during the early part of the 2000s, like Morrison’s New X-Men or Waid’s Fantastic Four or Garth Ennis’ Marvel Knights: Punisher, I think that the Avengers line of books were all struggling to find a direction. While I have some issues with the clunky crossover- and tie-in-reliant nature of the period, I do think that there was a lot more energy for the Avengers-related titles after Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Disassembled. Ed Brubaker’s Captain America and J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor can stand alongside the best interpretations of the characters, with Matt Fraction’s later Invincible Iron Man run also standing as a classic Iron Man run.

These Disassembled tie-in issues offer a pretty solid indication of where Marvel’s Avengers comic book line was just before the crossover, and most of them seemed to be in very serious trouble. There are two arcs from The Invincible Iron Man collected here, from two very different teams, and neither seems to know exactly what it is doing.

Iron Man decompressed?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, brian michael bendis, captain america, ed brubaker, Garth Ennis, iron man, J. Michael Straczynski, John Jackson Miller, marvel, Marvel Comic, marvel knights, matt fraction, Tony, tony stark | Leave a comment »

Avengers Disassembled: Captain America (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Darren

The fourth volume of Captain America had a brief but troubled run. Launched on the Marvel Knights imprint by John Nay Rieber, the book was originally intended to follow the eponymous hero as he attempted to make sense of the world after the September 11th attacks. It was precisely as heavy-handed and awkward as you might imagine. After Rieber departed the series, supposedly due to differences with editorial, Chuck Austen arrived to write a story where the US government apparently conspired to freeze Captain America in the block of ice because the hero had discovered plans to use a nuclear weapon. So, when Robert Kirkman was assigned the task of helping the series limp across the finish line so that it could be relaunched as Ed Brubaker’s Captain America, it felt somewhat appropriate that the writer cast the story as a much more conventional and goofy superhero adventure.

A punchy little run?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, captain america, Chuck Austen, Diamondback, ed brubaker, marvel knights, nick fury, robert kirkman | Leave a comment »

Weapon X by Barry Windsor Smith (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Darren

With our month looking at Avengers comics officially over, we thought it might be fun to dig into that other iconic Marvel property, the X-Men. Join us for a month of X-Men related reviews and discussion.

Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X was a fairly divisive comic when it was first published. Tasked with providing an origin for that most popular and iconic X-Men character, Windsor-Smith produced a twelve-part tale exploring the character’s history inside the secret “Weapon X” programme. While most fans would have probably preferred a more straight-forward and accessible exploration of the character’s history and back story, Weapon X is a wonderfully dense piece of work and, I’d argue, a true piece of comic book literature.

A bloody mess...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, avengers, barry windsor-smith, captain america, Comics, grant morrison, logan, marvel, marvel comics, Marvel Comics Presents, marvel universe, weapon x, Weapon X (comic), wolverine, x-men | 9 Comments »

Righteous Fury: Nick Fury, The Avengers & Moral Ambiguity…

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Darren

I had the pleasure of seeing The Avengers for the second time last week, to try to make sense of my opinion on it. I still think that it’s an impressive action movie, even if it is a fundamentally flawed one. Strangely enough, though, I confess to finding the character of Nick Fury completely and utter fascinating, arguably the most complex character in the script. The problem, however, is that his complex moral ambiguity is very clearly contrasted with the idealism of his team of superheroes. However, I’m not convinced that they win the argument.

How does he patch things up with the team?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Avenger, avengers, captain america, dark knight, hulk, iron man, IronMan, joss whedon, new york, nick fury, Pepper Potts, samuel l. jackson, skrull, superhero, Television, thor | 6 Comments »

X-Men: Inferno – Avengers (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Darren

This weekend, we’re taking a look at one or two of the smaller Inferno crossovers. These issues are collected in the crossovers companion book.

In many ways, Chris Claremont’s Inferno can be read as something of a practice run for John Byrne’s Acts of Vengeance. Both were massive crossovers that spread across a significant portion of Marvel’s publishing line, demanding writers to tie their stories in to these big and over-arching events. While Inferno‘s reach was arguably more modest than that of Acts of Vengeance, it seemed that the demonic invasion of New York could not be contained to the X-Men books, and ended up impacting titles as diverse as The Fantastic Four and Daredevil. Walt Simonson’s Avengers tied into Inferno as well, making an interesting attempt to launch a new team against the backdrop of an X-Men event.

Meet the new team…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Act of Vengeance, Avenger, captain america, chris claremont, Edwin Jarvis, Franklin Richards, Gilgamesh, inferno, List of vehicles in Marvel Comics, Madelyne Pryor, marvel, marvel comics, Simonson, walt simonson, x-men | Leave a comment »

X-Men: The Asgardian Wars (Review)

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Darren

It has been said that the X-Men rarely interact with the broader Marvel Universe. While characters like Wolverine and the Beast might have appeared on a roster or two of The Avengers, and Storm might have popped up in Fantastic Four, events within the X-Men line seemed to be self-contained, with Marvel’s mutants generally fighting their own problems in their own way. After all, Captain America was hardly a champion of civil liberties if he didn’t stand up for mutant rights, so it made sense to keep the mutants relatively self-contained.

However, despite this (somewhat deserved) reputation, it’s interesting to look back at the connections that writer Chris Claremont fostered with the wider Marvel Universe. Some of these (like the Claremont’s frequent connections to the Ka-Zar mythos) were relatively frequent within the pages of the main title (and no less strange for it), but Claremont was also a fan of making an event of a crossover between the X-Men and any other major players – things like Fantastic Four vs. X-Men. This story arc, told over four special issues, is something similar, making a big deal of the crossover between the world of Thor and the X-Men.