comic books | the m0vie blog

(Big) Daddy’s (Hit) Girl: Kick-Ass Controversy & The Art of Completely Missing the Point…

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Darren

Last week I remarked on how ridiculous it was that people were getting freaked out by the use of a certain c-word (and, no, it’s not a misspelling of the words “kick ass”) by a certain pint-sized assassin in a certain superhero spoof movie. In said article, I had the audacity to state that – although I wouldn’t agree with it – I could understand if they were upset by the gratuitous violence the little kid commits, rather than her choice of language. It appears my appeals to sanity within the moral guardian community has been somewhat answered and various commentators have begun decrying Kick-Ass for the way it treats and portrays Hit Girl, the eleven-year-old sidekick to wannabe Batman by the name of Big Daddy.

Opening Soon: The Nicolas Cage School of Parenting - Enroll Now!

Note: This article contains slight spoilers for the movie and probably bigger spoilers for the graphic novel. You have been warned. But don’t worry, if you want to wait to see the film, this article will be here when you get back.

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Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: all-star batman and robin, batman, batman & robin, big daddy, comic books, hit girl, kick-ass, lecturing, mark millar, moral outrage, morality, Movies, robin, sidekicks | 8 Comments »

Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis Omnibus, Vol. II

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Darren

I still stand by my assessment of Daredevil as the most consistently well-written comic book of the past decade. Sure, there have arguably been smaller runs that have been more experimental (Grant Morrison’s New X-Men), slightly more easily accessible (Mark Millar’s Ultimates), or more important for the medium as a whole (Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern is perhaps most responsible for general trends in the medium), but none is as consistently satisfying as the relaunched Daredevil title, in particular the two runs by Bendis and Brubaker. Here we have the second half of Bendis’ iconic run collected (along with some Daredevil-related miscellany). It’s a great collection that might not be as breathtakingly incredible as the first half of his run, but it certainly delivers on what was promised.

He's also The Man Without Shirts...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alex maleev, comic books, daredevil, daredevil by brian michael bendis omnibus, daredevil omnibus, golden age, karen page, kingpin, marvel, the golden age, the murdock papers, the universe, what if karen page had lived? | 1 Comment »

Matt Fraction’s Run on The Invincible Iron Man – Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Darren

Released just in time for you to play catchup before Iron Man 2 hits the cinemas, Marvel have published the first nineteen issues of Matt Fraction’s run on The Invincible Iron Man. It’s a big book. Unfortunately, it only contains two storylines (it looks like the era of decompression isn’t quite over), but despite some storytelling issues it manages to be a fairly entertaining read. Mostly because Fraction seems to have a fairly solid handle on the man inside the suit of armour.

Iron Woman...

Note: I do feel a little bit robbed. I bought this on amazon.com advertised as a Marvel Omnibus. It arrives at my door as a slightly larger than usual hardcover. There are next-to-no extras or commentaries or anything. I was looking forward to shelving this with my cool Omnibus collection – they do just look better. It isn’t any smaller than the Death of Captain America Omnibus or the second Brubaker Daredevil Omnibus. I’m a little bit ticked off. But I’ll get over it.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: comic books, heroic age, iron man, iron man 2, marvel, marvel comics, matt fraction, norman osborn, regression, salvador larocca, the invincible iron man, the invincible iron man omnibus, tony stark, world's most wanted | 2 Comments »

Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis Omnibus, Vol. I

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Darren

It took me a while to write this. Because it took me a while to figure out what to say. I honestly believe that the combined Bendis/Brubaker run on Daredevil has been perhaps the single most impressive run on mainstream comics in the past decade. It isn’t post-modern or retrospective, it isn’t flashy or innovative. It’s just a collection of good and clever stories, well told. Some of them reflect the state of the superhero in popular culture, some of them explore the role and function of the media as a supreme court of arbitration, but most of them are just good and clever noir stories. If you are looking to pick up a single collection of comic books, I would recommend this. It’s nominally a superhero story, but at its heart it’s a gritty urban thriller. But that’s enough hyperbole, don’t you think?

Better the devil you know?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alex maleev, arcs, brian michael bendis, comic books, daredevil, daredevil by brian michael bendis omnibus, daredevil omnibus, hardcore, marvel, out, review, the man without fear, trial of the century, wake up | Leave a comment »

Why Nolan Saying ‘No’ To The Justice League Is A Good Idea…

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Darren

An interesting snippet of news came out during the week regarding Christopher Nolan, the director of the two recent Batman films and now godfather to a to-be-relaunched Superman franchise (we’re hoping he can figure out how to make it a good film). The director, usually unbelievably coy about his work (he’ll flat out refuse to answer any particularly prying questions, which is great in an era of spoilers and speculation and so on), gave a succinct answer on whether his Batman and Superman will exist within the same universe. His answer was a flat-out ‘no’. And I think that’s great.

This looks like a job for Christopher Nolan!

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman, Batman 3, comic books, films, justice league, Movies, nolan, superhero, superman, superman 3.0, The Dark Knight, the dark knight sequel | 2 Comments »

So, You Want to Read Comics, Eh?

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Darren

We’re a bit late to the party, but this week we’ll be celebrating the 75th anniversary of DC Comics, with a look at the medium, the company and the characters in a selection of bonus features running Monday through Friday. This is one of those articles. Feel free to look up the rest, they’re fully of nerdy goodness.

So, it’s the end of our week-long look at the comic book medium and what a week it’s been. We’ve looked at grown-up comics and superhero comics, the best of DC comics and the quirks of the medium. So I hope you might forgive the excess if I write this last blog post from an all-together more person perspective. I like the funny books, I do. I think the medium has huge potential to tell stories in a fascinating format, unconfined by budget or scope. I am fascinated by the intertextual elements, the notion that all of these different and unique titles can be drawn together as part of one giant meta-story. But what I really have difficulty understanding is why the medium insists upon making itself so damn inaccessible.

Sometimes Superman just likes be a douche...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: closure, comic books, comic books for dummies, Comics, genre, maturity, medium, narratives, so you'd like to read comic books, storytelling | Leave a comment »

Stories That Mattered: Essential Stories From DC Comics’ 75 Years

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Darren

It’s been 75 years since DC burst on the scene. I don’t imagine too many of the suits behind the scenes expected it to last quite this long. The wonderful folks over at io9 came up with a 75-book list of essentials and it’s a pretty good list, but it’s heavily toned towards “important” narratives rather than “good” narratives. It’s a fair distinction. Comic books are a young medium, and – being frank – most of the early writing sucks. The Golden Age Batman and Superman narratives were semi-decent stories (in many ways better than those that followed), but the truly awful dialogue makes them nigh impossible to read. I thought I’d just put together a list of some of the highly recommended DC stories I’ve picked up over the years.

Definitely important... not so sure it's essential...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, batman, comic books, Comics, dc comics, green lantern, sandman, starman, superman, swamp thing, watchmen, y: the last man | 3 Comments »

The Twilight of the Superheroes?

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Darren

Earlier in the week, I wondered if the dominance of the comic book medium by superheroes was affecting the general perception of the relatively young medium. Is the time of the superhero long gone?

Some characters take this "superheroes as pagan gods" schtick a bit too seriously...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alan moore, archectypes, comic books, deconstruction, graphic novels, heroes, reconstruction, superheroes, the dark knight returns, the twilight of the superheroes, villains, watchmen | 1 Comment »

The Crisis Surrounding “Crisis Crossovers”

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Darren

In 2012, we will witness the first true superhero crossover on the big screen, with Iron Man, Captain America and Thor joining forces as The Avengers to battle evil. The Hulk may even get in on the action. However,this sort of overlap is hardly new to the source material which will inform the film. It seems that the comic book medium is dominated by the crossover fad, with the two major companies churning out massive event after massive event. Is this a good thing which demonstrates the strength and flexibility of the monthly-publishing schedule, or does this style of writing only serve to make the medium even more insular?

Yeah, see how messy this picture looks? Multiply that by about 42 and that gives you the idea of the complexity we're looking at...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman rip, blackest night, brightest day, comic books, continuity, crisis crossover, crisis on infinite earths, dc comics, final crissi, graphic novels, hypertextuality, intertextuality, marvel comics, medium, seige, the herois age | Leave a comment »

Comics for Grown Ups?

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Darren

Comic books are what Neil Gaiman once famously described as “the medium that’s always confused with a genre”. The fact that they are typically populated with spandex-wearing superheroes has led to a bit of a pop culture stigma around the medium, as stories about grown men in their underwear pounding each other are the only stories that could be told in that format. Anyone even loosely familiar with the history of the genre will know better, but I’ve always imagined comic books having a hard time fitting in to popular culture in the same way that books or film or television do. So can comic books ever really draw in that elusive adult audience?