Brightest Day?

So, in spinning out of the Blackest Night mini's DC announced a brighter future and even have a series called "Brightest Day." But, to show that this is really just meaningless lip service and it's standard business as usual, Green Arrow has become even more violent, again eschewing trick arrows and using maiming and disfiguring shots. Remember the last time he did this, the book was actually labeled "For Mature Readers Only" and it started the downward spiral that lead to the character being killed off? The whole point of his resurrection and relaunch was to turn the clock back a bit to when the character was actually a viable superhero within the rest of the superhero community. What's next? Hal Jordan going nuts and massacring the whole GL Corps? Superman getting killed and replaced by four others? Hawk going nuts and getting enough power to kill off half the JSA?

Also, as part of this supposed focus on the heroes and brighter future, we have a new Titans book starring villains. First order of business, kill off the Ryan Choi Atom! Ok, I was a bit surprised that he hadn't died already since his book was canceled. And, once Ray Palmer started making appearances again... Still, of all the "new" One Year Later titles, his was the only one that had any legs to it, lasting for 25 issues. Part of what made it work was it didn't invalidate previous continuity nor build up the current character at the expense of the previous one. Of course, it is what ultimately doomed poor Ryan as the back door was always open for the return of Ray Palmer.

Meanwhile, the writer Eric Wallace defends the killing by talking about how much he likes the Ryan Choi Atom and what a great character he is. Just as Scott Beatty and Alex Ross talk about how much they love the Phantom character which obviously translates to not actually wanting to write the character as is but changing him. Geez, with friends like these...

Stories like this and James Robinson's JLA mini and ongoing book likewise built on a bunch of corpses are what are keeping me away from the majority of the titles by Marvel and DC. Even when they say they are going to focus more on the heroes and a "brighter day", their deeds show that it's all meaningless hype. It's an attempt to lure back lapsed readers, hoping that they won't notice that the majority of the line is still the exact same morose and dreary writing that drove them away the first time. If they really wanted to focus on producing brighter, more accessible and more heroic comics, they'd just do it.

Thought the recent promo of the new relaunched Avengers title was interesting in that the conversation between Wonder Man and Steve Rogers, if you substitute "Bendis" for the word "Avengers" and it pretty much sums up my feelings.

Iron Man 2: Saw the movie last night and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's not a Tony Stark that I remember, but it doesn't seem out of kilter with the way the character has been portrayed in the comics in the recent past. I was happy to see Happy Hogan with significant screen time and actually doing stuff. His scenes are funny but they show that he has a heroism to him even if he's not of the same caliber as Iron Man or the Black Widow. The movie did a great job at really playing up Stark's intelligence and drive, even when he's not in the suit. At times it's unclear just how much of his personality as a egotistical shallow genius is really that or a show. There's one point after he really makes a complete jerk of himself that it's implied that he engineered the whole debacle so that Rhodey would steal the suit and become his replacement.

Only a few things bothered me in the movie. One, the armored threat. It seems to be the tact of the movies to make the hero and villains too much of the same cloth. He fought an armored villain the first movie, it would have been nice to see a different kind of threat. The Hulk movies went the same route, where the villains were just reflections of the hero.

I thought Hammer was too lightweight of a bad-guy as well. If not for Sam Rockwell's performance, he would have been a complete joke. I never felt that Stark or his business was ever in any actual danger from Hammer as he was completely shown up by Stark in every single situation. He was never a credible or serious threat, just an annoyance. In fact, Stark's enemy was really only himself and his own shortcomings and not Hammer. This backfires a bit as it distances Stark from us. It's a role reversal of the Doctor Doom and Reed Richards relationship in the first FF movie. Stark and Doom are the arrogant and more successful men and who come out on top continuously throughout the movie, their undoing more from the worse parts of their nature. The difference being that at the end of the day, we know Stark will redeem himself, while Doom will ultimately pay the price for his arrogance.

Census: I'm temporarily working for the census and it really amazes me the resistance and anger to it that I've been seeing in the field and online. How does the line go? I like individuals, it's people I can't stand. And, it's not in the places you'd expect. I am in a rural county, lots of nice subdivisions alongside mobile home parks and farms. The people in the nice homes, the ones that benefit the MOST from the information gathered are the ones that are the most resistant, rude or won't even answer their doors. The simple fact is that government is only a small part of who makes use of that data.

Unless you live in the woods in a house that you built yourself by chopping down the trees, dug your own well, have no power and grow all your own food, you benefit from the information gathered. A recent news story talked about how whites were moving from the suburbs into the city, guess where a lot of that type of statistical information comes from? When businesses look to locate, it's based on demographics gotten from the local governments. Your roads, emergency services as well as local services such as power, water, trash pickup, schools... all based on statistics gathered from the census and which drive the value of your property. The building you are living in exists because some builder made a decision based on local demographics, largely built from census info.

Ironically, by not filling out the census, it causes the government to spend MORE of taxpayers' money in trying to get that info, the going door-t0-door is the most expensive part. And, it only guarantees that someone is going to come to your front door, and keep coming to pester you. If you seriously have something to hide or don't want to be bothered, the smart thing to do was to actually mail it in and the government won't come snooping around your door trying to get or verify the information.

Reviews of the week

Saw the Iron Man movie last week.

You know, I really enjoyed it. It had a great balance of fun, humor and action. There's character growth for Tony Stark. And it works better here than in the comics. Read the original comics, and Tony Stark is not an unlikeable character. At the time, it wasn't politically incorrect for someone to make weapons or to be a playboy. Stark starts off as a man living the American Dream and he's not a bad guy for doing so. Then when he's captured, critically injured and forced to develop weapons for the enemy, he puts his ingenuity to work and finds a way to overcome his PHYSICAL not MORAL handicap to become a hero. And he continues to do so as he realizes that he could keep helping people before his injured heart eventually catches up to him and kills him. The plot of the boozing, egotistical brilliant man that is injured and discovers enlightenment is basically the plot to Doctor Strange not Iron Man. In recent years, that has changed in the comics. The end result is that Iron Man is pretty much the bastard of the Marvel Universe these days.

It works in the film though. Now, a big part of that is that like Doctor Strange's original origin story, the movie is a single entity, a single story and the needed character growth to make him into a hero is the central story and is resolved in one sitting. In today's serial comics, that type of story is one long, drawn out process. Unless you buy a collected trade, it can take months to get that resolution. Nowadays, such character flaws seem to be actually required in the comics, so you may never get that resolution or you can be sure there will be plenty of back-sliding and bringing it up again every time a writer runs out of ideas. Sorta like poor Henry Pym, where his character flaws have been allowed to grow and over-shadow everything that once made the characters actual heroes. But, movies are different entities from comics and one should expect there to be differences, just as there should be some reasonable faithfulness as well. Plus, extra leeway has to be given when adapting something like Spider-man, Iron Man or X-men to film as you're dealing with characters and stories that are 40 plus years old with hundreds of stories, creators and little revisions here and there over the years. It's a lot of continuity to have to shuffle through to choose what to put up on the screen.

So, it's cool that we see a take on the original gray armor, but the red and gold armor reflects his current armor and none of the dozen or so changes in between. We have Happy Hogan, but he's downplayed in favor of the Jim Rhodes and the possible romance of Pepper Potts. We have SHIELD agents, how cool is that? So, they changed the race of Nick Fury, so what? It's neither here nor there. Personally, as much as I like Samuel L. Jackson, him as Fury is about the same as hiring DeNiro to play a tough guy gangster, or Jack Nicholson to play someone on the edge of being a complete whacko. I don't see the character Nick Fury, I just see a standard variation of Jackson. It is one of those changes that irks a little, because there's no reason an actor of the proper race couldn't have been found to play Fury. Or to call Jackson's character Bridge, Gabriel Jones, or someone new. After all Fury didn't start off as head of SHIELD, he was and really would be best as the ultimate kicking butt agent.

Robert Downey, Jr does a great job as the conflicted Stark. He makes the character that should be an unredeeming jerk come off as being quite affable in many regards. All the little necessary tidbits from the comics are there. Guess it would have been just a little too cutesy to name the SHIELD agent Sitwell. I'm hoping that in the next one, maybe we'll get the Mandarin. There seemed to be quite a few little references. The group the Warlord was part of was called Ten Rings and both he and Stane did wear predominant rings. It'd be cool to see there was a further mastermind behind it all.

COMICS

American Dream: Basically a female Captain America from Tom Defalco's MC2 universe. I liked it a lot. I couldn't have told you much about the character as she's at best been a sporadic supporting character, serving mostly as backdrop to Spider-Girl for the last several years. Yet DeFalco totally delivers on a 1st issue comic. You're introduced to the characters and told as much as you're needed as you go along. The story is retro in that it's a hero who seems to have everything together as a superhero, but whose personal life has taken a backseat to the heroic one too often. As a superhero, she actually fights crime and isn't above investigating something more street-level such as the disappearance of some immigrants. While there are a pair of criminals that are targeting her because she's part of this world's Avengers, her focus isn't fighting criminals that happen to be targeting her. The writing does have one flaw. Defalco's weakness is dialogue and there's a bit here that too often happened in the past. In a sequence of panels and pages, the action clearly takes only a couple of seconds, but American Dream is able to give a running commentary in those seconds that clearly would take a couple of minutes

Todd Nauck's art actually works for me here. In the past, he always seemed a bit too much of a caricature artist style. He's more straight-forward here, deliving on solid action and character moments. He draws an attractive super-heroine without resorting to cheese-cake shots.

Overall, the comic is what most mainstream superhero comics really should be and Defalco delivers each month with Spider-Girl. It's exciting and suitable for all ages without dumbing down artwork or story for the kids.

Abe Sapian: The artwork is nice and moody, but the story just kinda sits there. I think it's because Abe is great as a supporting character, but he's so introspective that the story only plods along. Maybe it's one that would read better once it's all done. With upcoming budget changes, I may change to getting these in trade format only.

The War that Time Forgot: We're introduced to some old familiar characers and new ones, least I didn't recognize them. And an interesting set-up. The comic ends just when it really gets going. I think I would have liked a little more definition of just who and what the other group on the island are. Just some clue as to the enemy. There are some great bits between the characters as well. Tomahawk has always been a favorite of minor DC characters and I would have loved to have seen a few others: the Golden Gladiator, Silent Knight, Shining Knight, Arak, Star Hawkins, cowboy Johnny Thunder, etc. Mini-series like this are great for re-aquainting some of the lesser seen characters of the DCU and seeing them actually interact inside of continuity. And dinosaurs make great foils. It could be interesting to see how the different characters might view each other as being from different time-periods. A WWII pilot won't necessarily get along with a German from WWI. Meanwhile, he wouldn't bat an eye with a British ally but the Revolutionary War natives on the other hand... I look forward to future issues as some of these characters and the plot get fleshed out.

The Atom: Sad to hear this title is coming to a close as it's consistantly interesting with a likeable hero who is able to be a genius and yet still come across as bit of an everyman. Although, I found this issue confusing almost to the point of non-sensical. Assuming that the next issue with Chronos will actually explain some things. The covers have been wonderful. This one by Ladronn reminds me of 60s-70s science-fiction paperback covers.

Avengers/Invaders: I almost didn't pick this up because I don't really care for Marvel's current status quo or the Avengers. But the art and the Invaders ultimately won me over. Loved the depiction of the Sub-Mariner, looking like someone who relishes his power and ability. The musculature and all echoes a bit of Kane or BWS to me, and really gives him a powerful and noble look. Not as enamored with the Human Torch, looked a little more like lava than flame and it was hard to tell him apart from Toro whereas traditionally, their flaming bodies are not drawn alike. Classically, there's always been differences between Hammond and his latter day namesake Johnny Storm as well. Most of my other quibbles had to do with the story. The title of the book IS Avengers/Invaders, yet the Avengers are not a presence other than cameos. As much as I liked seeing the current Thunderbolts get a smack-down and I'm not a fan of the current Avengers, no combination of Avengers could have been trotted out? Sure, the Avengers' absence helped influence me to actually pick it up, but that's me. I can be objective enough to realize that it's a little misleading, especially to those picking it up and expecting said team.

Unless there is a story-point proving these aren't this Marvel Universe's INVADERS, neither writer nor editor could apparently be bothered to actually refresh themselves on Roy Thomas' series and actually get the basic history of Union Jack and Spitfire correct? 1: Union Jack has powers. He received a variation of the super-soldier serum thus he's no more normal than Captain America. He also had some electrical powers thanks to an encounter with Thor. 2: Spitfire did not need a blood transfusion
because she was shot. She was bit by Baron Blood, her family's hereditary enemy. This isn't like even 20 years ago when getting fine details to a character would mean hunting up an obscure book, one that might be even a little expensive being 30 years old. I was able to verify the Spitfire info by googling and the first website I clicked. WHICH HAPPENS TO BE MARVEL'S SITE! 3 minutes of research tops to check facts. Getting characters' basic origins wrong is completely unprofessional on the part of both writer and editor. This kind of information is increasingly at a writer's fingertips. And a superhero's origin story is hardly nitpicking the details as to whether so and so's eyes are blue or brown, it's the type of stuff you expect a creator to look up first when approaching the job of writing a superhero book.

Iron Man movie peek

Here's a peek at the gray Iron Man armor in the upcoming Iron Man movie by Marvel Entertainment. I'm assuming this may be either the armor Tony Stark builds while a captive in Afghanistan, or the second version, as the plot premise specifically states there will be 3 stages of armor development, with the third being the red and gold that we are familiar with. I think keeping to the comic history we'll see this armor, then the gold, before we see the red and gold.

**sigh** If Only I Had A Time-Machine

**sigh** If only I had a time machine.

At the end of 2000 and beginning of 2001 the comic book company Marvel's stock was hitting below $1.00 per share.

This was after the acclaimed release of the first X-Men movie.

I remember the late '70's early '80's live action Spider-Man and Captain America shows. This was when I thought Beast-Master was the most awesome movie I had ever seen, and yet I knew these shows were lacking. Spidey would crouch down with palm up, thumb out and middle 2 fingers clutched to his palm. The scene cut to the group of bad-guys standing all in a bunch, then a net would drop on 'em! When Spidey climbed the wall, you could see the rope pulling him up as he waved his arms and legs incongruously with the rate he was "climbing".
I saw the Cormen Fantastic Four ash-can bootleg.

So naturally, I thought: "C'mon, just keep doing what you're doing and stick to the print media. You want to branch out? Fine! Release some novels." 'Cause you know I was going to watch the movies no matter how bad I thought they would be. Any super-hero movie or TV show I have to watch! Call it a compulsion. Remember: I watched the hokey FF movie.

But they plowed ahead (they never listen to me) and for good reason: They're master story-teller's. Some of your favorite movies, in fact, may be comic-book creations and you might not know it, such as the Road to Perdition. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying they're all winners, but the hits definitely out-weigh the flops! In fact I would love to see a great writer and artist to storyboard, team up to redo the flops just to show that it can be done better. Just to say to the mainstream audiences that turn their noses up at comic book movies "Hey! This is what we do!"

Now other comics are making it to the big-screen too, but Marvel is leading the way with their sequels. Just look at what they've got coming: Spider-Man 3, FF 2 Rise of the Silver Surfer (honestly, I thought the first one was a little flat, so this surprises me) not to mention the success they had with the Blade and X-Men series. Also coming is Ghost Rider; and Iron Man, Luke Cage, Deathlok, Gargoyle, Magneto, Namor, Wolverine, Punisher 2, The Incredible Hulk (2008), Ant-Man (2009), Captain America (2009), Nick Fury (2010), Thor (2010), The Avengers (2011), Black Panther, Hawkeye, Shang-Chi, Cloak and Dagger, Power Pack and Iron Fist are all pre-production or otherwise in development stages. And did I mention Marvel's cutting out the middle-man and filming most of these movies themselves at Marvel Studios?

Movie technology has finally caught up to keep pace with the most creative of writers and directors, so with the right combination, there's nothing that can't be done!

Oh, and just in case you're interested, Marvel stock is now over $25 per share! **sigh** I wish I had a time machine.

The Iron Man Movie - Slated for May 2, 2008

Iron Man is a 2008 superhero film based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Iron Man. The film is directed by Jon Favreau and stars Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. Also signed are Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes, and Gwyneth Paltrow as "Pepper" Potts. The film is slated for a May 2, 2008 release.

Synopsis:

Since the movie is still in pre-production, this is what has been said thus-far: Tony Stark develops the three stages of the Iron Man armor, starting with "clunky, low-tech... diving bell armor" that he is forced to build in Afghanistan. Stark eventually updates the armor to a flying suit with the red and gold scheme and finally attains a "weapons platform" stage with the armor. Stark faces the villain The Mandarin.

Visit the Official Movie Site. Nothing there yet, but you can register for updates to be e-mailed to you.