comic books | the m0vie blog

Realm of Kings (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Darren

This is the fifteenth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s shared universe (particularly their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity.

Realm of Kings is a strange little chapter in the cosmic saga that Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have been drafting. It seems to exist not really as a story in its own terms (although it does contain some interesting narratives) but rather as a bridge between War of Kings and The Thanos Imperative. It’s essentially the story of an attempt to find stability in a radically warped universe, one turned upside down by recent events. It feels somewhat smaller in scope than the other events that the pair have produced, not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, it’s nice to see a series exploring the consequences and aftermath of what has occurred, rather than simply pushing on right into the next big thing. While Realm of Kings does focus on “the Fault” opened at the climax of War of Kings that will become a galactic threat in The Thanos Imperative, the three miniseries are at their best when they explore the consequences of the political instability that the intergalactic war has produced.

That's gonna be Thor tomorrow...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: andy lanning, arts, cancerverse, captain america, comic books, Comics, cosmic marvel, crossover, dan abnett, ed brubaker, history, imperial guard, inhumans, kree, lovecraft, marvel comics, marvel universe, realm of kings, realm of kings: inhumans, realm of kings: son of hulk, retrospective, review, shi'ar, son of hulk, Thanos Imperative, the fault, war of kings, war of kings: imperial guard | Leave a comment »

Batman Beyond: The Call (Parts I & II)

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. This review/retrospective was meant to go out over a week ago, when I looked at Justice League: New Frontier, but unfortunately my package was delayed in the mail. However, I thought it might be worth a look back at the first time we saw a Justice League in the DC animated universe.

It seems that Bruce Timm and his staff of writers had considerable advanced notice that they’d be working on a Justice League cartoon show. The last season of Superman: The Animated Series contained animated introductions of characters like the Green Lantern in In Brightest Day and the Flash in Speed Demons. However, the introduction of the Justice League as a concept, a team of superheroes working for the greater good, came in Batman Beyond of all places. Portraying the distant future of the animated universe after Batman retired, it proved an interesting way to look at the team without getting too involved in the personalities involved.

Batman goes Beyond the call of duty...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bruce timm, Brucetimm, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, comic books, dc animated universe, dc comics, dcau, Greenlantern, Justiceleague, superman: the animated series, Television, Warner Brothers | 2 Comments »

Matt Fraction’s Run on Uncanny X-Men – Nation X (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

I am doing a weekly look at Marvel’s complicated crossover chronology, following various key crossovers to see if they might give me a better idea of what I’m missing by avoiding mainstream comic book continuity. While – with The Avengers due for release in 2012 – I am focusing on the stories told featuring those characters over the past five years, I also have time for the X-Men. While this isn’t strictly speaking a crossover, it is a series of issues which connect Utopia to Second Coming, so I figured it was worth a look.

Utopia ended with a heck of a plot twist. Cyclops decided that his merry band of mutants have had enough of being looked down upon in New York and , more recently, San Francisco, so he decides to build himself an island from the remains of Magneto’s “Asteroid M” just off the San Francisco Bay. Announcing the new nation of “Utopia”, he declares the island a haven for mutants. Nation X provides a hardcover collection of the issues from Matt Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men which bridge the gap between Utopia and Second Coming, as well as the four-issue Nation X anthology miniseries. And, while it’s a decidedly uneven reading experience, I have to admit that some of Fraction’s portrayal of the mutant team is a little bit interesting – even if most is slightly boring and deeply convoluted.

Magneto has a magnetic personality...

Note: This collection opens with Dark Reign tie-in X-Men: The List written by Matt Fraction and following an attempted assassination attempt on Namor by Norman Osborn. Accordingly, I think I should open this review with a link to Abhay’s quite excellent article on the issue, which – among some more serious points – suggests that Namor is starring in his own private version of You Don’t Mess With The Zohan. Seriously, check it out.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: asteroid m, change, comic books, cyclops, Doctor Nemesis, emma frost, fans, greg land, israel, Kitty Pryde, magneto, marvel, marvel comics, matt fraction, metaphor, Professor X, retrospective, review, san francisco, status quo, terry dodson, uncanny x-men, utopia, x-men, x-men: nation x, x-men: utopia | 1 Comment »

X-Men/Dark Avengers: Utopia (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

This is the fourteenth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s shared universe (and, in particular, their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity. Get an overview of what I’m trying to take a look at here.

There’s an essay to be written about how Marvel has so carefully and meticulously replaced the X-Men with The Avengers as their biggest A-list franchise book (in fact, there’s a quite wonderful essay written here about that). During the nineties, the big event crossovers at Marvel seemed to exist at the leisure of their mutants – Age of Apocalypse and Onslaught being two of the more obvious examples. However, since House of M, the mutants have been consciously sidelined. They continue to have their own internal events and crossovers – Messiah Complex and Second Coming the most obvious examples – but they remain largely insular and detached from the regular goings on in the Marvel Universe. Except for Wolverine, because he’s everywhere.

Marvel announces Dark Avengers on Ice!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: avengers, avengers/x-men, comic books, Comics, crossover, cyclops, dark avengers, dark reign, dark x-men, emma frost, marvel comics, matt fraction, norman osborn, san francisco, scott summers, the cabal, the list, utopia, x-men, x-men/avengers | 1 Comment »

War of Kings (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Darren

This is the twelfth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s shared universe (particularly their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity.

War of Kings is perhaps the best thing to come out of Secret Invasion. In fact, the miniseries went out of its way to highlight its links to the Marvel comics mega-event, with the story even kicking off in a Secret Invasion: War of Kings special (note the order there, it isn’t War of Kings: Secret Invasion). However, not withstanding the attempts to tie the series back to the high-selling mainstream events that Marvel was consistently churning out, War of Kings is essentially an epic space opera, the story of an interstellar war and alien politics, told with the wit and charm that writer Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have made the cosmic line famous for. Tying it into Secret Invasion only serves to highlight the deficiencies with that event, as the writers here attempt the same sort of story with the same sort of themes, but with more skill and grace than the bigger event could off.

Now is the time...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: andy lanning, black bolt, comic books, Comics, cosmic, cosmic marvel, crossover, dan abnett, darkhawk, emperor vulcan, history, inhumans, israel, kree, marvel, marvel universe, Middle East, secret invasion, secret invasion: war of kings, shi'ar, Twentieth Century, war of kings, war of kings: ascession, war of kings: darkhawk, war of kings: who will rule?, Wars and Conflicts | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Batman – Under the Red Hood

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. This is one of the “stand-alone” animated movies produced by the creative team that gave us the television shows.

You did it! You found a way to win and everybody still loses!

– The Joker

The story of Batman, boiled down to its most essential elements, is a tragedy. He’s a character defined by hurt and loss – the suffering and failures he has endured while fighting simply to stay alive in an uncertain world. The reason that the animated Batman: Under the Red Hood works so well is because it manages to capture that observation perfectly in its relatively tight runtime. Over the course of the movie, Batman has several of his rather glaring failures touted out in front of him and – what’s more – faces the possibility that he may himself end up obsolete.

The joke’s on Batman…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: a death in the family, animation, batman, batman: under the hood, batman: under the red hood, Black Mask, bruce greenwood, bruce timm, christian bale, comic books, dark knight, dc animated universe, dcau, dick grayson, film, Jason Todd, john dimaggio, joker, judd winick, kevin conroy, Red Hood, robin, superheroes, the joker, the red hood, under the hood, under the red hood | 2 Comments »

Green Lantern 101: A Beginner’s Guide to The Green Lantern Mythos…

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Darren

The trailer for Green Lantern arrived yesterday. I’m already excited about the release. However, I acknowledge that Hal Jordan isn’t quite the household name that Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent is. So I put together this collection of frequently asked questions about Green Lantern, which will hopefully give you a bit of an introduction to the character. If this proves popular, I might do the same for Thor or Captain America, the other major comic book releases of next year. Check out the trailer below.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Abin Sur, bruce wayne, clark kent, comic books, faq, film, frequently asked questions, GoldenEye, green lanter trailer, green lantern, green lantern 101, green lantern movie, hal jordan, Hector Hammond, iron man, Kyle Rayner, martin campbell, Movie, questions, ryan reynolds, sueprheroes | 14 Comments »

Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – Mighty Avengers: Assemble & Secret Invasion (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Darren

This is the ninth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s core continuity (and in particular their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity. Get an overview of what I’m trying to take a look at here.

After the schism of Civil War, a title like Mighty Avengers makes sense on some level. If you’ve pitted heroes against heroes in a contest that you’ve deemed to be allegedly subjective (Marvel’s editorial policy was that there was no right or wrong side to the conflict), then it makes sense to follow the winners as well as the losers. The post-Civil War issues of Bendis’ New Avengers followed those heroes who had fought against registration of superheroes and lost, and Mighty Avengers was launched to offer us an on-going narrative featuring the winning side. It also seems to be a conscious nostalgic effort on the part of author Bendis, perhaps a response to the criticism that his early work on New Avengers steered clear of conventional Avengers storylines – occupied as they were with Japanese ganglands, prison breakouts and Sentry’s inter-personal issues. Here, Bendis seems to be consciously focusing on classic Silver Age devices – in the first run of issues, the State-sanctioned Avengers team faces classic foes like Ultron, the Symbiotes and even Doctor Doom. The problem is that Bendis isn’t necessarily comfortable drafting conventional superheroic fare.

Ultron puts Tony in touch with his feminine side…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: avengers, brian michael bendis, Civil War, comic books, continuity, crossover, doctor doom, doom, frank cho, hank pym, iron man, marvel, marvel universe, mighty avengers, ms. marvel, secret invasion, skrulls, the avengers, the infiltration, the mighty avengers, thought balloons, thought bubbles, tony stark, ultron, victor von doom, wasp | Leave a comment »

Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – New Avengers Vol. 3-4 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Darren

This is the eighth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s continuity (and, in particular at their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity.

And now we’re entering a continuity-heavy area. You have been warned. As if we’ve been in a continuity-free zone for the past couple of weeks, remarks you, trusted reader. This is where my little experiment to venture deep into the heart of Marvel’s comic book continuity becomes a little bit more complicated and a little bit more difficult. Whereas the first part of Bendis’ run on New Avengers was relatively stand-alone (while still drawing on decades of events and continuity), it’s at this point the series becomes irrevocably intertwined with the on-going events at the heart of the Marvel Universe. It’s been described as “a spine”, and that’s pretty much exactly what it is: it’s a support structure which ties together the big Marvel events year-on-year, a thread that joins events like Civil War and Secret Invasion and Siege to each other and the greater fictional universe.

Wolverine learns the hard way not to bring claws to a gun fight...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: avengers, brian bendis, brian michael bendis, Civil War, comic book events, comic books, continuity, doctor strange, e spider-woman, echo, elektra, events, hawkeye, illuminati, invasion, iron man, luke cag, marvel, marvel comics, marvel universe, maya lopez, mighty avengers, new avengers, ronin, secret invasion, sentry, skrulls, spider man, the hood, the illuminati, the new avengers, the revolution, wolverine | Leave a comment »

The Walking Dead, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Darren

Welcome to the m0vie blog’s zombie week! It’s a week of zombie-related movie discussions and reviews as we come up to Halloween, to celebrate the launch of Frank Darbont’s The Walking Dead on AMC on Halloween night. So be sure to check back all week, as we’ll be running posts on the living dead.

I want to like Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. I really do. I love zombies. I love it when writers use horror to explore socially relevent issues. I totally dig the black-and-white style which is clearly intended to evoke the vibe of George Romero horror films. I love that it’s a mainstream comic book property that has broken into popular culture despite not featuring muscle-bound guys and gals with impossible physiques in ridiculous spandex – proof to the masses that comic books can be about more than superheroes. However, as much as I may want to embrace and love The Walking Dead, I just can’t bring myself to.