comic books | the m0vie blog

It’s the 75th Anniversary of DC Comics…

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Darren

… and to celebrate, we’ll be running a selection of comic book themed posts throughout the week.

We've come a long way, baby...

We’ll be looking at:

Those interested in this might like to check out The Dark Week, a week-long Batman-related event we ran to celebrate the anniversary of The Dark Knight and Batman’s birthday last year.

For those here for the movie news and reviews, don’t worry, this won’t itnerrupt with regularly-scheduled posting.

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 75th birthdau, comic books, Comics, dc comics, graphic novels, media, medium | Leave a comment »

Looking for Christopher Nolan’s Superman…

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Darren

Superman is a tough character to get right. In any format. I remarked earlier in the week that there are very few truly classic stories featuring the character. While I’m more than a little delighted that Christopher Nolan has been handed the reigns to the franchise, I’m also a little bit nervous. Is there a way to make Superman a viable commercial franchise for the twenty-dirst century? I’d argue there is, if we look in the right place. Here’s my opinion: Look! Up in the skies! I think that the place to look to take the character back to his roots is the sort of wonderful ‘out there’ science fiction of the fifties. Batman does noir, so let Superman do hokey sci-fi.

"You will always be a child of two worlds..." Wait, sorry, wrong monologue...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bryan singer, Christopher Nolan, clark kent, comic books, fifties, nostalgia, richard donner, sci-fi, superman, superman 3.0, superman ii, superman reboot, superman returns | 2 Comments »

Is The World Ready for a Black Captain America?

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Darren

Apparently the casting of Captain America: The First Avenger is around the corner. We’ve had confirmation of several story details (I’ll probably come back to those later in the week) and confirmation of the fact that The Red Skull will be the baddie. Which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, since he is the arch-foe in a rogues gallery which isn’t exactly brimming with iconic villains. I’ve been following discussions about the casting on-line for sometime now, and something has really surprised me when Will Smith’s name came up in connection with the role: apparently the internet nerds are not ready for a black Captain America.

Of course it has been done...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: captain america, captain america: the first avenger, casting, comic books, ethnicity, fandom, marvel, Movies, race, racism, steve rogers, will smith | 2 Comments »

Daredevil: Yellow (Review)

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Darren

The rest of the story you know too well. It’s been told a lot of ways, with many other people in my life, but this is the way I choose to remember it when I think of you.

– Matt Murdock

The first part of Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb’s informal ‘colours’ trilogy (Spiderman: Blue and Hulk: Grey being the rest of it), Daredevil: Yellow has a lot going for it beyond the two talents behind a trilogy of iconic Batman stories (Haunted Knight, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory). Cynics would describe it as the last classic that Loeb wrote. The truth is that it offers a wonderful eulogy for the carefree comic book stories of old, simple and ridiculous fare with simple storylines and clear-cut good guys and bad guys. It’s a nostalgia trip – which means it isn’t quite as compelling as the duo’s work on Batman – but it does lend the collection a nice feel to it. If you are in anyway interested in the olden days of comic books without the retro-post-modernism that typically accompanies such fare, this is the story for you.

Daredevil's come on leaps and bounds from his early days...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman: the long halloween, comic books, Comics, daredevil, daredevil: yellow, ed brubaker, frank miller, guardian devil, jeph loeb, karen page, marvel, matt fraction, matt murdock, review, stan lee, the man without fear, tim sale, yellow | 4 Comments »

Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus (Review)

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Darren

There’s a lot of buzz out there suggesting that Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America might be the run on the character, the one for the ages – like Frank Miller’s tenure on Daredevil, for example. I decided that – with the movie coming out next year – it might be worth bringing myself up to speed on the character. While I haven’t finished Brubaker’s run (it’s on-going and I still have to read The Death of Captain America Omnibus), it is a very solid run, packed with great ideas. It’s a clever and well-crafted story that demonstrates that Brubaker has more in him than just gritty pulp like his fantastic runs on Daredevil and Gotham Central. On the other hand, I’m slow to call the run an instant classic – I’d rather finish his run before I make that judgement. Towards the end it feels like Brubaker’s own story has become somewhat derailed by the larger events looming in a shared universe. He’s still an amazing writer and succeeds in keeping the train mostly on the tracks, but one gets the sense that the collection would have been better if he had been granted complete control over it.

"Hey, Cap, what are we staring at?""You'll know it when you see it, Bucky; you'll know it when you see it."

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Bucky, captain america, Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, Captain America Omnibus, Civil War, comic books, Death of Captain America Omnibus, ed brubaker, gotham central, graphic novel, marvel omnibus, Nazism, Red Skull, review, Steve Epting, United States, Winter Soldier, world war ii | 2 Comments »

Alan Moore’s Run on Swamp Thing – Saga of the Swamp Thing (Books #1-2)

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Darren

Before Alan Moore was the superstar writer of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V For Vendetta, Watchmen or even From Hell, he was a writer at DC Comics. While he wrote some truly fantastic Superman stories (collected in the well recommended deluxe edition of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), he was most famously associated with a run on Swamp Thing. When he took over writing duties on the title, Swamp Thing was a series on the verge of cancellation. Which meant that he had a huge amount of freedom to work on the title, with the capacity to do just about anything he wanted.

It isn't swamped with continuity...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, alec holland, arts, comic books, Comics, dc comics, John Constantine, john tottleben, league of extraordinary gentlemen, review, swamp thing, Swamp Thing: Earth to Earth (Vertigo), the anatomy lesson, the monkey king, the saga of the swamp thing, vertigo | 4 Comments »

Robert Kirkman’s Run on Ultimate X-Men – Vol. 7-9 (Hardcover)

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Darren

Ultimate X-Men is a tough title to get a read on. The fact that the run has been broken down into blocks by all manner of superstar writers means that there’s really no consistent underlying principle feeding through the eight-year life of the title. On the other hand, the fact that none of these big name writers like Mark Millar or Brian Michael Bendis could create a book living up to the series’ potential indicates that maybe there wasn’t a writer who could steward the book through its entire life cycle. Ultimate Spider-Man serves in many ways as a fulfillment of the promise of the Ultimate line, it’s almost a single, decade-long story of growth and development, the very evolution of a world of superheroes. Ultimate X-Men is very much the opposite, the constantly bending backwards over itself, jolting, starting and reversing as it seems unable to decide where exactly it’s going at any given moment. Robert Kirkman’s run is perhaps the best examples of the series’ strengths and ultimately (ha!) its weaknesses.

Somebody's been watching Terminator a bit too often...

Note: Some of Aron Coleitte’s work is covered in the Hardcover Volume 9 (with the rest of his short run spilling over into the Ultimatum Hardcover). If I can bring myself to pick up Ultimatum, I will run a review of his rather short tenure on the title. This review is only concerned with Kirkman’s run – up until the end of the Apocalypse arc.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 1990s, apocalypse, bishop, cable, comic books, date night, magical, marvel, marvel comics, pheonix?, retrospective, review, robert kirkman, sentinels, the magician, ultimate apocalypse, ultimate marvel, ultimate universe, ultimate x-men, x-men | Leave a comment »

Kevin Smith & David Mack’s Runs on Daredevil (Hardcover Vol. #1)

Posted on December 21, 2009 by Darren

It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s also been said that Frank Miller’s Born Again pretty much defined Daredevil. So it should really come as no surprise that Kevin Smith borrowed from that particular story wholesale for his relaunch of the character back in 1999. It’s not necessarily a bad thing – Smith has the decency to admit that the concept isn’t incredibly original – and in a way it provides a suitable note upon which to relaunch the title.

Bring your child to work day was not the resounding success Matt Murdock expected...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: born again, comic books, daredevil, david mack, echo, guardian devil, joe quesada, kevin smith, kingpin, marvel, marvel comics, mysterio, parts of a hole, review | Leave a comment »

Could Quentin Tarantino Make “Daredevil”?

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Darren

Last week it surfaced that Quentin Tarantino was invited to make Green Lantern before Martin Campbell took on the project. Being honest, I am actually more interested in what his Casino Royale would have looked like – he was interested in directing the project and keeping Brosnan in the leading role. It certainly would have been different from Campbell’s reimagining of the Bond series. But during the interview, Tarantino revealed that he might once have been interested in the idea of directing a comic book movie, but that has passed:

So there’s a little part of me that’s like, ‘Wow, if I was in my 20s, this would be the genre I’d want to specialize in’. But they weren’t making them then, or at least not the right ones. But there also is an aspect where I’ve kind of outgrown that a little bit.

I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that Green Lantern – with it’s massive space opera tapestry, inevitable reliance on hockiness that really won’t stand up to deconstruction and newl-emerged status as an A-list comic book hero – would not be ideally suited to Tarantino’s unique skillset. I racked my head thinking of some – Black Panther, Ant-Man, Starman – but I think I kinda settled on the hero would perhaps best suit his style. Daredevil.

Can Tarantino save Daredevil?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adaptations, comic books, daredevil, daredevil sequel, films, frank miller, green lanter, kevin smith, Movie, quentin tarantino | Leave a comment »

Daredevil by Frank Miller Omnibus Companion

Posted on December 12, 2009 by Darren

I’ve always seen Daredevil as a peculiarly Catholic superhero. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s the devil imagery. Frank Miller clearly sees the character as an Irish Catholic (he admitted that he believes the character practices) in an interview at the end of the first omnibus. It just seems to fit. There’s just something so human and organic about the character – so vulnerable and flawed – that he seems like some sort of lost soul amidst the pantheon of god-like superheroes. A man torn between heaven and earth. The fact that probably the greatest story told using the character is titled Born Again and his mother is a nun (as close as you can plausibly get to a virgin, I suppose) doesn’t exactly hurt, either.