Movies this week

An addendum to my typical comics pre-game on Tuesdays because I didn't even mention it in this week's post. In case you somehow missed it (and you would have to be trying REALLY hard to miss this) Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy comes out THIS VERY FRIDAY (or, most likely, Thursday night). I'm a little mixed on this release, as I rather have been since its announcement, but the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Of course, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive for Iron Man 3 and I was not onboard with that one. Anywho, if all goes well, I'll be seeing this Thursday night and give you a quick update on my thoughts, likely to not be succeeded by another post with a full review since CLEARLY I have stopped doing those? Look, what I'm trying to say is that I've had a nearly empty draft post about Captain America: Winter Soldier, a movie I loved, sitting in this blog since April.

Movie Review: The Wolverine

Movie Review: The Wolverine

Maybe the difference between Iron Man 3 and The Wolverine is that, as much as I tried to clear my mind, I went into Iron Man 3 with expectations. I didn't have specific expectations but I had some expectations about the way Tony Stark was going to be perceived and the way that Iron Man himself would come across. As a result, I couldn't help being disappointed by seeing Tony Stark play "Tony Stark," a caricature of the snappy but heartfelt character from the the first movie in the series. Audiences picked up something in Iron Man about Tony Stark that resonated, something fun but real. It was then misinterpreted as simply "fun" for the next two movies and it weakened his character as a result. I went into The Wolverine expecting an over-the-top Wolverine movie that may have been campy fun or may have been endlessly painful. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had both of those aspects. There were moments where the action, as over-the-top as it was, was fun and exactly what people going to a Wolverine movie wanted to see (when your main character heals, the stakes of each fight have to be raised). Overall, though, the movie had plenty of moments that were really bad and shoe-horned in characters that normal moviegoers didn't need to see and that fans of the comics weren't going to be happy about. My friend Phil runs a Youtube channel and recently reviewed this movie for himself and he touched upon a lot of the same stuff I'm going to be talking about. However, the biggest point he made is that this is a Wolverine movie.


The movie is set in Japan where Wolverine returns after being a prisoner of war in WWII. He was kept on the outskirts of Nagasaki when the bomb was dropped there but saved the life of one Japanese officer, showing off his healing factor and (then) bone claws to the man as they waited out the explosion and the aftermath in a deep rock well. Years later, with the Japanese officer on his deathbed, Logan returns to say his goodbyes but quickly gets wrapped up in several different plots for and against the family. It's an interesting story with multiple twists and turns and enough beats to keep an audience interested. More than that, though, it does a solid job to establish Wolverine as his own character. Sure, the burden isn't really on this movie to do that, as Wolverine is perhaps the most popular character from the very popular set of X-Men films but it's nice to see him away from other superheroes for a bit. Even Origins found Wolverine fighting alongside a group of mutant mercenaries only to inevitably break free a slew of mutant children and have a climactic fight beside his mutant sort-of-brother against another mutant. Here, there are three "superpowered" characters in the movie and everyone else is just skilled in some way or another, leaving Wolverine more on an island. Fans of Wolverine comics, though, will recognize many of the names in the movie as specific to Wolverine, with Mariko and Yukio heading up a movie that also features the Silver Samurai prominently. Frankly, the fact that the movie is almost completely in Japan is rather specific to Wolverine, who spends plenty of time there in the comics. More than all of that, though, this is a Wolverine movie because the main character is Wolverine. Wait, that's not as dumb as it sounds just...just hang on, it'll come around.

Wolverine is a very specific character. Sure, everyone is, but that doesn't necessarily stop movies from making their lead character a parody of him or herself, especially after he or she has appeared in so many titles (for the record, I thought The Avengers benefitted from Tony not being over-the-top Tony). Here, though, Wolverine maintains everything that makes him unique, from his attempts at removing himself from society and breaking from his past to his reluctance to get involved in another plot to his dedication to the people he cares about. Every bit of it is Wolverine at his core, in addition to the normal surly demeanor. A Wolverine movie doesn't work without Wolverine at its center and The Wolverine knows it so it doesn't ever try to make it about anything else. Every facet of the plot is about Wolverine and the life he leads and the decisions he makes. Of course, another important aspect of Wolverine is in the action he brings to the table. The fight scenes are all impressive and nicely choreographed. Fans of ninjas and everything that makes fast-moving kung-fu movies won't be disappointed (it's not exactly kung-fu but it's about as close as any Marvel movie will get until SOMEONE MAKE AN IRON FIST MOVIE). Even the most campy, over-the-top fight, a three person fight as they struggle to stay atop a bullet train, looks cool and is certainly as fun as it sets out to be. The inevitable fights against the three main villains live up to the rest of the movie, with no fight lowering the stakes from any previous fight. Still, the movie isn't all action as we see Wolverine get wrapped into another love affair, one that will be recognized by fans of the comic, who probably anticipated it from the moment they heard this movie was set in Japan. Wolverine and Mariko travel the country together to evade the people who need evading all while forming a relationship of their own. It's a well-paced relationship with nothing too out of the ordinary for a movie but it's a nice structure nonetheless. You really understand the building blocks of the relationship and you can see the movements from point A to point B without any real leaps.

This movie isn't on the same level, necessarily, as movies like The Avengers and Captain America: The First Avenger but it would have been hard to get to that level, particularly after the precedent X-Men Origins: Wolverine set for the Wolverine franchise. Still, this movie comes out looking pretty good when it's all said and done. It's a good plot with plenty of great character moments for Wolverine, Mariko, and Yukio, among others. The action is very strong and a lot of fun and there are enough moments of levity to break some of the gritty tension here and there. The villains are intimidating enough, even if Viper, seemingly a mutant version of something resembling Madame Hydra, lacks any real sort of motivation beyond "bad guy." Her inclusion doesn't ruin the movie by any stretch, though it does make it harder to appreciate her as a villain when even every other villain has a pretty concrete motive (though I might argue that the final villain Wolverine faces, not to give out any spoilers, comes off a little weaker by the end). It's a fun movie, perfect for fans of Wolverine and of action movies in general. It's certainly not without its flaws but I can't imagine anyone went into this one awaiting the Criterion Collection version. I was going to say that it was fair to judge this movie on a different set of standards than I judged Iron Man 3, since both of these movies had a precedent set by their series and one improved the series while the other, in my opinion, devalued it. While I do think that's still true, I don't even know that I need to temper this review in that manner. The movie is fun completely on its own merits and, more importantly, it stays true to the character we've grown to love in every previous X-Men based movie. Don't forget to stick around after the first set of credits to see a special scene that should get you excited about the next movie we'll see out of Fox's Marvel wing (spoiler: it's the new X-Men movie).

Iron Man 3 review

SPOILERS. Guys, there are going to be spoilers here. I don't want to spoil comics for people (I do anyway, hoping that people won't be too mad) but I really don't want to spoil a major motion picture. DO NOT read this review unless you have no desire to see the movie, have already seen the movie, or do not care about spoilers. On with the show.

There's a real flaw with my vocabulary that extends beyond my inability to think of words to describe comics aside from "interesting." That flaw is the term "comic book villain." When I say it, I think of a villain who is over-the-top evil and seemingly evil for evil's sake. I also know that if other people used that term, I'd be mad because plenty of comic book villains have nuances and real backstory and history and a trajectory on their arc that got them to where they are. In many cases (not all of them) the ones who ARE evil for the sake of evil are still done well enough to make them compelling enough to watch. They have motivations. Iron Man 3 has two villains that eventually, thanks to a twist in the movie, becomes one villain. For about half of the movie we have a terrorist known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) bombing locations in America with impossible to trace bombs the put out an absurd amount of heat, vaporizing anyone within a few feet of the explosion. Mandarin interrupts all broadcasts and claims responsibility, promising more bombings in time. Not to any end, just to "teach America a lesson." Working under him is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), creator of a think tank called Advanced Ideas in Mechanics, or AIM. Killian had tried to get Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., of course) onboard back in 1999 but Tony had ignored him. Tony's date for the night though, a biologist named Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), apparently took Killian up on the offer, bringing her invention of a way to recode DNA to heal a person, among other things, over to AIM. We eventually find that Killian is, in fact, not working under the Mandarin but directing things himself and that the Mandarin is a construct, with Kingsley actually playing an actor playing the Mandarin on these broadcasts. It's a twist that will throw off most moviegoers and most comic fans, as the Mandarin is a long time real enemy of Stark in the comics. Killian is behind it all, spreading Hansen's data, called Extremis, I'm not sure there's a huge point to the twist other than being a twist though. This might just be from me as a fan of the comics (though I've been told from non-comic readers this was true) but I feel like we knew Killian was a bad guy all along and we even see him working with the Mandarin before knowing that the Mandarin is fake. So if it's a minor twist, at least we have one solid villain instead of several weaker villains who don't get enough screen time to develop.

Guys, that line was meant to make you think that would be true, but it's not true. Aldrich Killian is a comic book villain. He created the Mandarin so that he has a face to hide behind and a lightning rod for hatred. So what is Killian's end game in all this, now that he has the pieces moved into place? I don't know. I mean, he wants power, I guess. He strings the vice president into his plans which, assuming his last bombing wherein the president would be killed goes off without a hitch, would put an AIM supporter in the White House. He mentions that he controls the war on terror with the west's biggest hitter and its biggest terrorist in his hands. So is he in this for the power? For the money? He seems pretty wealthy already. I didn't get the sense in either of my two viewings over the weekend that he particularly cared about money. There's a little subplot with him in love with Pepper and using her as a trophy that seems a little sudden. Simply put, he seems evil for evil's sake, but without the race hatred of a Red Skull or the power and ego of a Doctor Doom. This might seem like picking on just one aspect of a long movie but it's kind of a make-or-break point. A villain without a sincere motivation is just confusing because there are no terms on the table. I think the film tries to set up the idea of Killian as a once-good guy, back in 1999 when he was a nerd hanger-on with physical deformities, who has been slighted one too many times and snapped, but it doesn't stick. The same is kind of true for Hansen, though we see more of her before and after and she gives us a speech about science meant for good being used for evil. Still, there isn't enough time spent on developing these characters to give us a real sense of why they're doing what they're doing. Hansen is definitely better, showing a woman who is doing important research and will do whatever it takes to get it funded, but she also comes away as someone who has seemingly accepted the Mandarin solution and only thinks better of it later.

Yikes. We've gone two long paragraphs without even touching the titular character. Let's talk about the good first because those paragraphs were definitely huge negatives. The action scenes are intense and fun to watch (if at times a little cluttered and confusing). The film never feels really painful to watch, which seems like a backhanded compliment but really isn't; there are plenty of superhero movies (and movies in general) that don't just drag, they actively seem to resent the viewer. Tony is Tony, suave and cool but able to recognize, eventually the good things in his life. It will never not be fun to watch an Iron Man suit fly through the air and in this movie we get a whole slew of them doing just that. The performances are largely what we would have expected out of the talented group of actors. The film also did a great job of keeping to itself, not reaching out to the Avengers in an attempt at pleasing fans (except in a cute post-credit scene). That can't be easy to do in a time where The Avengers made over a billion dollars.

So let's move on. My biggest flaw with Tony is that there's a plot surrounding his time in The Avengers. Tony has come away from the experience a different person. No matter how cool he seems on the outside, he's torn apart inside trying to cope with things that are bigger than him when, before The Avengers, nothing had really BEEN bigger than him. He knows aliens exist, he knows a little about Thor's nine realms, he knows that there's a guy who can fly and call lightning, and he's the only one on Earth who saw what he saw beyond the portal. Tony's now prone to anxiety attacks and hasn't slept soundly since the events in New York. It's explained as how he has so many new suits; he's spent all of his free time (which is considerable now that he doesn't sleep) building new suits and inventing new tech for his new suits. His newest tech is an ability to call his suit to him at a moment's notice, or to throw it on someone else (like Pepper to get her out of the way of debris). But anyway, the idea of his anxiety attacks is an extremely interesting one. It's easy to forget, given the scale of the movies and the fact that the audience has seen all the Marvel movies and is no stranger to Thor nor to sci-fi as a whole, that Tony Stark wouldn't be comfortable with these things appearing in his world. The anxiety attacks fit well with the character and the problems behind them are real ones that are fascinating to unravel. Then, halfway through the movie, the plot drops out to make way for action scenes.

I'll say again, the action is good if a bit dragged out, but when you set up your main character to have a hugely interesting new flaw then kill it with no resolution and no apparent memory that it was a problem (except for a throwaway line later about how he's sleeping better), you've got a problem in your storytelling. Tony's anxiety attacks, which had played a major role in the first half of the movie, all but disappear when he's told by supporting character Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins), a precocious child with a scientific mind and no father, to go build something. Did...did that solve the problem? Because, from Tony's own testimony and as evidenced by all of the Iron Man suits, he's been building things. Then the anxiety never reappears because we have action scenes to get to. So we take a really interesting and new idea of a character who has always been in control and has understood what he's been doing losing a grip on that control and that reality before completely forgetting we did that and watching Tony and his army of Iron Men attacking an army of Extremis powered soldiers (quick side note: Extremis isn't particularly well-explained either. It "rewires" DNA for the next step in evolution and that MIGHT mean that it makes people able to heal, makes them run faster, makes them stronger, makes them hot to the touch, and so on. But all of that is shown, not told, so who knows what this thing really does?) while trying to save the love interest only to find the love interest saving him. TWIST.

I love Marvel movies. I think that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been unprecedented in its boldness and its willingness to tie together this huge web of movies and characters, despite legal flaws like "you can't use Spider-Man or mutants." I think The Avengers was a pretty near perfect film for what it set out to do and I've been impressed by the depth of story and character each film has put forth when it would have been so easy to just make a popcorn flick. I think Iron Man 3 is a popcorn flick. It's got good action, quippy characters that we know and love, and a rather undefinable antagonist and plot. I think it's the weakest entry from Marvel since Iron Man set the whole universe in motion. On the plus side, the Iron Man franchise as a whole never reached Spider-Man 3 or X-Men the Last Stand depths. The movie is still totally watchable and never gets painful to watch. I like the introduction of both AIM and Roxxon to the MCU. Hopefully it's not a sign so early on into Marvel's Phase II that the direction from here on out is going to be coasting. I still have high hopes for Thor: The Dark World and remarkably high hopes for Captain America: Winter Soldier. For the first time seeing a new Marvel movie though, I can honestly say I'm not dying to see Iron Man 3 again.

Iron Man 9, Iron Man 258.1, Iron Man: The Coming of the Melter

Iron Man 9
Gillen (w) and Eaglesham (a) and Guru eFX (c)

GUYS it's Iron Man day! For no particular reason! Just kidding, it's totally because the movie's coming out tomorrow. I'm planning to see it tonight so what better way to get excited than to review one the three Iron Man books that came out this week purely by chance! Ha, just kidding, I have a sneaking suspicion that Marvel knows what they're doing, considering two thirds of my Marvel calendars have Iron Man on them for the month of May (the third one is the Thing because why not?).
Okay, so let's dive into it then. Iron Man is on the search for 451 after 451 destroyed the Voldi (or condemned the Voldi to death. Semantics). The Guardians of the Galaxy (with whom he's currently touring the universe) drop him off at a little place called "Hope's Pustule," which, Starlord informs Tony, is not an ironic name. There Tony tracks down Death's Head, the bounty hunter he had to fight in the Voldi arena and who had managed to escape the destruction of the planet. The pair claim no hard feelings and Tony hires Death's Head to help him track down 451. The two talk about Death's Head's great ship and Tony makes a few Star Wars references before they find a lifeless Badoon ship that Death's Head's ship's sensors have brought them to. While exploring the ship, they find that all of the Badoon aboard apparently committed suicide, which isn't exactly a Badoon custom. 451 is indeed on board and Tony hopes to ambush him as he turns a corner. Unfortunately, Death's Head has been working for 451 all along and his goal was simply to bring Tony to him. On top of that, 451 has hacked PEPPER and left Tony defenseless. 451 hopes to talk to Tony but offers no explanation for the destruction of the Voldi (he also says that they were more or less living on borrowed time hiding from the Celestials and Phoenix and everyone else, though he does accept some blame). Without much choice, Tony agrees to listen to 451, who pulls out an old film cannister. On the film is Tony's dad, Howard Stark, explaining that he's done questionable things to help the world and, more specifically, to help Tony. Then 451 comes into frame beside Howard.
The plot thickens as we get more of an understanding of some of the power that 451 wields and far more questions arise in total, adding to our sizable total already being asked. Hard to speculate too much about where the arc and the series are going but it's nice to see Tony have to deal with his daddy issues a bit more and to find out that Howard is far from a saint. We'll be able to talk more about that when we know exactly what it is Howard is alluding to, but it's worth mentioning upfront that Tony seems to have a very strange relationship with his father as it is. Fun to see Gillen's take on it.

Iron Man 258.1
Michelinie (w) and Ross and Layton (a) and Sotomayor (c)

When I read the description of this book, I was pretty much able to write the entire review in my head. Old Iron Man pros David Michelinie and Bob Layton return to the armored Avenger to give their take on John Byrne and John Romita Jr's Armor Wars II (Michelinie and Layton were the minds behind the first). The Armor Wars were pivotal books in Iron Man history that, like most other Iron Man books not pertaining to his drinking, revolved around someone stealing the Iron Man tech and selling it to bad guys. I rather like that Gillen has sent Tony to space if only because his armor isn't that big a deal in space and he didn't bring many extras with him so no one is that eager or able to steal it. In this book, which will be continued next week allegedly, a biomass that was taken out of Tony (and connected to computer chips and nanites in his body) gains sentience and access to Tony's computer systems. He then kills a doctor that was helping Tony and reveals himself to be what Tony should have been, according to him.
So what I was going to say immediately after reading the description is "nice read, definitely worthwhile for old school Iron Man fans to pick up and relive the magic but not too relevant to today's Marvel." I think that still applies, but I will admit to being surprised by the ending. The reveal of the "Iron Mind," Tony's connected biomass, was a solid twist. Why he thinks he's what Tony should have been is worth exploring, so we find ourselves with a nice little read that's definitely worthwhile for old school Iron Man fans to pick up and relive the magic, but isn't too relevant to today's Marvel, though it may be building into a somewhat compelling story nonetheless.

Iron Man: The Coming of the Melter
Gage (w) and Lim (a) and Sotocolor (c)

I don't know what to make of this book. I had some ideas about it when I saw it on the list this week (maybe it's like Iron Man 258.1, a former Iron Man writer stepping in to tell a story that hasn't been told before) or maybe it's an Iron Man movie tie-in (though I was pretty sure the Melter wasn't appearing in the movie; I guess I'll find out tonight starting at 9 PM). Maybe it's an easy-to-read story for new readers interested in Iron Man but unwilling to start with Gillen's far-different-than-the-movies arc or maybe it's a quickly/cheaply produced book trying to cash in on the movie's arrival. After reading it, I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm something of a Christos Gage fan, as he was born and raised in my home state and used to go to one of my comic book stores. I also quite liked his Union Jack mini-series several years back and reluctantly enjoyed his Avengers Academy title. He has a weird role in Marvel, though, and sometimes he gets books like this which leave more questions about what it's doing than what it's done. Let's start with plot. The Melter shows up and interrupts a press conference Tony is holding to startle and defeat Tony in quick combat in front of cameras before telling the press that he'll be selling his new weapon to the highest bidder soon, after another display. He turns up against War Machine a few days later and also defeats War Machine. Tony and Rhodey team up to try to figure out who's behind the Melter armor, which leads to the by-the-book detective Rhodey doing things his way while off-the-rails detective Tony does things his way. Neither comes up with a perfect solution but they reconvene with their information to figure it out and eventually track down and stop Melter. They each agree that, while they have their differences, they're stronger working together than apart.
Who was this book meant for? I would say it's meant to try to let children read a comic book about Iron Man before or after the big movie comes out, but I don't think kids will be particularly entertained by a villain they won't see in the movie and will certainly not be entertained by the random crime procedural in the middle of the book. Anyone older than children, though, will be somewhat bored by the issue and will find the explicitly delivered moral trite and a bit obnoxious. I don't think this would attract new readers into reading more comics and it will just confuse older readers. Weird release, other than to hopefully make a few quick books. That kind of does fit, though. Gage also wrote the recent movie tie-in limited series for Iron Man so maybe part of his role now is to churn out the easily and quickly produced books to make a couple extra dollars. Worth missing. Like, it's actively worth missing, not just okay if you miss it.

Marvel Phase Two news

With the release of the Marvel Phase One blu-ray box set (which, amazingly, no one has bought me yet), we got some much expected and highly anticipated information about Marvel's coming Phase Two, the second string of new release movies starting next month with Iron Man III and ending in Avengers II in 2015. In between those two movies, we're set to get Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and, if the promo art is to be believed, Ant Man. Let's break this down by movie.

Iron Man III actually has the least new info to talk about. With the release being right around the corner, we already more or less know what to expect. Tony is going to square off against the Mandarin with an army of Iron Man armors as Mandarin hits him where he lives; literally at his house and figuratively with Pepper. The newest trailer shows Tony with the ability to summon his armor to himself or cast it on others, giving us a nice shot of him essentially throwing the armor on Pepper to protect her as the house caves in on itself. It inevitably is drawing Iron Man fans to think about the recent addition of Rescue to the Iron Man universe. For those uninitiated, Rescue is armor that Iron Man developed for Pepper to protect her and also to let her assist in heroing things. Rescue has limited offensive firepower, at Pepper's own request, and is therefore more adept as a...well, a rescue source. So that's the name explained. We also know this movie is set to feature Aldrich Killian (played by the fantastic Guy Pearce) and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), who are most notable for their hand in the Extremis virus. Lots of plot to get to here, including a War Machine appearance in more colorful armor that is hard not to compare to Norman Osborn's Iron Patriot armor seen in the last couple years. So much to look forward to, potentially, and hopefully the movie lives up to everything it can.

Thor: The Dark World will feature Christopher Eccleston (notably the ninth Doctor in Doctor Who) as Malekith, the dark elf who is an Asgardian supervillain (he's not actually Asgardian, he's from Svartalfheim, but he's from that wing of the Marvel Universe so I guess I'm being racist?) who is typically associated with the Casket of Ancient Winters, a box that's pretty much just Jotunheim in a box. I'm interested in the plot behind this movie because it proves that the Cinematic Universe won't be afraid to stay in the fantasy world of the Asgardian corner of the Marvel Universe. I figured that the first movie would be a way to cement Thor as someone who was not of Earth then would spend a lot of the second movie putting him on Earth, probably still to protect the people from his kind of threats. Though that could still very well be the case, the willingness to keep Thor squared against fantasy villains in their fantasy realms seems pretty brave. I wonder if the movie is heartened by the success over the last decade of things like Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and is willing to throw its lot in with that kind of crowd. I'll get back to things like that with Guardians of the Galaxy but for now, suffice it to say I think sticking with the heavy reliance on Thor's world and his background and people/gods is an interesting and hopefully rewarding move. The new info released with the Phase Two images are largely shots of fight scenes and Natalie Portman in possibly Asgard. Again, not a ton to pull from that but we should be moving right along to getting a trailer relatively soon, as the movie is set to be released in November.

Okay, now let's go to the movie that I'm REALLY writing about. Yes I'm excited about the other movies on this list and yes I'm always going to be thrilled to see these characters portrayed well on screen, but this is my bread and butter. And somehow it keeps making me happier. I was thrilled last Comic-Con when they announced the title of the new Captain America movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I knew there was a good chance we'd get this story in the second movie, as I think it's one of the best stories in Cap's history (competing against the oft-referenced, by me anyway, time that Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube to switch into Cap's body and be kind of a prick to everyone and Cap covered his new Red Skull face with mud and EVERYONE bought it) and it was a little bit set up in the last movie. Set up enough, anyway. I don't want to go too far into details because I don't want to spoil the surprise for any readers (though the IMDb info for the movie does quite enough of that, thanks very much) but I'm absolutely thrilled about this movie. I'm excited to see Cap starring in his own movie in the present day and teaming up with people like Black Widow and Sharon Carter and the Falcon (pictured at right somewhere, assuming I remember to put the picture in). I'm a little bummed that Sharon Carter isn't going to be played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (as was once reported) because I'm a bit in love with her and it's just about the only thing that could make me MORE excited for this movie, but that's still okay because I went to the IMDb page recently and found out something else about the movie. On top of the Winter Soldier and Crossbones as villains (aw, I hope we don't get Sin, actually, now that I'm saying it. It does sound pretty likely though. Geez, I'm excited to see how this movie plays out), we're also getting another, older-school villain for Cap to face off against at some point, if the cast page is to be believed. That's right, BATROC THE LEAPER IS GOING TO BE IN A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE RELEASE.
Let's give a little backstory here, as I sadly haven't had enough time to gush about Batroc on this blog. One of the ways I got into comics was by reading Wikipedia articles. If you've never read a Wikipedia article about a major superhero, do yourself a favor and check one out. As someone who adores comics and comic-lore, the Wikipedia pages, while typically pretty accurate, are completely indecipherable. There is nothing that makes comics sound more ridiculous than reading the summary of their plots (and yes, I understand how ironic that sounds on a blog that reviews comics). I looked up a page of Cap's villains and found, among other greats like Flag-Smasher and Dredmund the Druid, Batroc the Leaper (or, alternately, Batroc ze Lepair...he's French, you see). Batroc is exactly as ridiculous as he sounds and writers have always treated him well, making sure we know he's never a huge threat. Even Cap tends to sigh when he comes across him. In recent days, Batroc has become far more formidable, as a master of savate, the French martial arts. He's an impressive fighter (being portrayed in The Winter Soldier by a mixed martial artist) mercenary who has a sort of honor code and is ALWAYS hilarious. I'm very excited. My exact thought when I saw his name on the list was "Someone's been looking at my diary!"

Anyway, the Winter Soldier story is one of my favorites in all of comics and cemented my love for Captain America will igniting love for other characters like the Winter Soldier himself. The newly revealed costume for Winter Soldier in the movie looks good, exchanging the domino mask for a full face mask. I'm trying to think of ways this movie could be bad and none are coming up. I trust all the actors in their roles at this point so I'm not worrying about them screwing up the characters like I was the first time around and I think the story is really hard to mess up so I'm hoping for the best. I need to move off this movie now or else I'll talk about it the rest of the day and never end up posting anything.

Guardians of the Galaxy was the most unexpected announcement last year at Comic-Con, when Marvel's Phase Two was revealed hot off the massive release of The Avengers. It's very interesting that Marvel chose this property to show off. It's interesting in the idea that they're willing to push the cosmic corner of the Universe and that they're dedicated to rebooting the brand in that area (also signified by their putting Brian Michael Bendis, one of their most popular writers, on the new Guardians book). The move is also significant in the light of the reveal at the end of The Avengers, that the mastermind pulling the Chitauri strings was Thanos. A Guardians of the Galaxy movie gives a very simple stepping stone for Avengers II as it presents another opportunity to get a glance at Thanos in action as he makes his way towards Earth. With the new images for Phase Two, we're shown some concept art for the movie that includes a couple of Star Wars-esque scenes of characters in space-bars and, you know, in space. We also quite a couple of neat concept art pieces of Rocket Raccoon, who will be one of the most important characters of the movie. First off, he's pretty much the comic relief (particularly tied with Groot) so he's bound to be pretty prominent in the film, but more importantly he's a walking, talking raccoon, as his name might lead you to believe (I'm pretty sure he's not actually a raccoon, he's an alien, but whatever, he's a raccoon). Bad CG here could be an issue for the movie. Concept art is very interesting but it doesn't really mean anything until we see the real rendering in action. Still far too early to expect anything like that though, so let's all marvel at the set pieces they're aiming to create. It's interesting that the art draws comparisons to Star Wars, another new Disney property set to have a huge release the year after Guardians. Maybe Disney wants to test the waters first.

Finally, the other completely new art we're getting is costume design for Ant Man, the long speculated Edgar Wright-Marvel team up. I am not the biggest Ant Man fan, though he's certainly grown on me in recent days, but I am a huge Edgar Wright fan. When I heard that Marvel was interested in making an Ant Man movie, my hopes started to fade. There are so many other great heroes out there that deserve movies, like Black Panther and...okay, look, I really want a Black Panther movie. I'd be happy with Iron Fist in a movie but you kind of have to do Luke Cage alongside with him probably and I'm not as sold on that. Doc Strange would be cool too, but really, where is Black Panther? Anyway, hearing that Ant Man was getting a movie first was disheartening at best. However, the reveal that such a movie would be directed by Edgar Wright of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and, most recently, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was immensely encouraging. It's safe to say that Edgar Wright is one of my favorite filmmakers so let him do whatever he wants. The new costume design for Ant Man looks pretty good and I heard that the test footage at last year's Comic-Con was very entertaining, even if it was just test footage. Hopefully the inclusion of the Ant Man pieces confirms that Marvel is dedicated to the movie, as it seemed not too long ago that Ant Man's fate was still up in the air.

I think there were also a couple concept pieces for Avengers II in the media dump but I honestly couldn't tell if the last few art pieces were for Guardians or Avengers and, either way, didn't give much new information. One way or another, we're looking at a very exciting and very ambitious Phase Two from Marvel. It's phenomenal that Marvel didn't decide to simply rest after their great successes and churn out very similar movies to that in Phase One, but instead pressed ahead and chose to go to new places with their established cinematic heroes and to include risky choices for the new properties. Let's hope everything works out because then everybody wins. Everybody that loves fun, anyway.


(All pictures are courtesy of IGN and their coverage of the Marvel Phase One boxset, except for the Iron Man III picture which I got from here)

Iron Man 6, Iron Man 3 Prelude 2

Iron Man 6
Gillen (w) and Land (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Tony Stark has flown to deep space to explore and be inspired to do more great things. It's a good premise Kieron Gillen has come up with for Iron Man, driving him to places he really should be going. Iron Man is certainly a protector of Earth, but he's left it in good hands. I've said before that the sense of time in Marvel isn't something I ever want to explore, but it does beg some questions. Iron Man will pop up in half of the Avengers books while also journeying to the farthest reaches to space? When does he have time? LOOK, it's not that big a deal. It's one of those things where you have to say "it's not worth me thinking about, I want to read a good story and if this book and the other ones he appears in are all good stories, I can't be upset about how their timeline works out." I think that's a fair sacrifice. It could also end in a situation where, you know, it turns out he was only gone for twenty minutes because science. I almost prefer the first option.

Anyway, he's in space and he's helping because that's what he does. On top of helping being what he does, what he also does is inventing, so he spends a lot of time marveling in this issue at all of the advancements of this ancient alien race he's protecting. On top of helping and inventing, Tony Stark also does sex so, when not helping or marveling, he spends much of the issue flirting. I think it's safe to say Gillen knows this character. In a fun little twist, the alien woman who wants Tony as much as he wants her ends up vomiting after he takes of his helmet and reveals facial hair. Dejected, Tony leaves and is set upon by space cops! Space cops! Sorry, I need to have an exclamation point after "space cops!" They're not much of a challenge to take down but Tony doesn't realize they're space cops! until after he dispatches them. He's wanted for deicide (not "decide," don't read it that way or else you'll be confused, TRUST ME), which he doesn't understand. He turns himself in and makes his way to the pseudo-courtroom. He denies killing any gods but eventually comes to realize that the god of the people he's so recently saved is the Phoenix, which he had as big a part as anyone in destroying way back in AvX.

This issue is more a set-up of things to come but it still works. Like I said, Gillen seems keyed in on Stark's character and I think sending him to space is a good idea. First, it takes him out of the comfort zone of Earth, where he has a reliable supporting cast and he's kind of a big deal. Now he's in the unknown and has the chance to either get himself into huge trouble or, as he and the F4 are both trying to do right now, learn something new. On top of all the little pieces that make sense for Stark's character, the drive to go out and find something new and exciting is a defining choice. Everything else (helping, inventing, sex) represents a piece of the Tony Stark puzzle but it should be treated exactly as that. It's a piece. Sending him to space because he needs inspiration and needs to be bigger and better is the picture as a whole, what the completed puzzle looks like. Now's a pretty good time to jump on this book if you're trying to delve into the story of one of Marvel's most popular heroes.

Iron Man 3 Prelude 2
Gage (w) and Kurth (a) and Sotocolor (c)

There's not a ton left to say about this mini after everything I said here. It does a lot of what the first one did, shows off Rhodey's armor and his intelligence while also showing a bit of the enemy set to appear in Iron Man 3. There's another nod to The Avengers with a quick scene of their battle and a kind of predictable shot of the team eating shawarma JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE. I can't really hold any kind of cutesy nod like that against this book because that's entirely what this book is supposed to be. It's for the Cinematic Universe, it's hyping up that world, OF COURSE it's going to make reference to established things from that world.

In truth, what I said last time about this book remains the case. It's still a bit better than average for a movie tie-in kind of book. I do have to believe that we're seeing more pertinent things about Iron Man 3 than I would have guessed before reading the book, i.e. the attempt at stealing Iron Man's tech, the use of easier-to-obtain Hammer Tech, the willingness to do harm to civilians, Tony's response to this whole situation, and so forth. If you're not terribly into comics yet but you're interested because of the movies, this isn't a bad place to start. You'll get useful shout-outs to the movies and to characters you know from the movies like Pepper and Coulson and it's only two books. Can't ask much more from a tie-in than that.

Cinematic Universe

Say what you will about superhero movies and cheesy action polluting the CINEMA, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a wonder to behold. Even if you aren't a comic fan (not to discourage readers, but WHY are you on this blog?), you have to understand that what Marvel Studios has done is kind of revolutionary. That might not be revolutionary in a good way, time will tell. But to have taken distinctly different franchises from an incredibly distinctly different medium and tied them all fluidly together is very new. No, of course it's not new to make a series, 1, 2, 3, 4. It's new to make a series like this where the movies don't directly tie to each other until they do.

Matthew Ferguson's box art for the Avengers. Really
awesome.

There are a lot of things I really like about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Universe 199999. I don't know why they couldn't just do a three digit universe like the 616 or something more natural. Typing 616 is WAY easier than saying the main Marvel Universe but typing 199999 seems WAY harder somehow) and only a handful of things I don't like. Are there some lesser entries? Sure. Do I worry that they'll run out of ideas? You bet. Have they characterized the stars as both accurate to the comics and free enough to enter different plots? Absolutely. As I've said several times, I hate seeing Captain America as uber-patriot, beat down all the commies, I've loved America before you were even born kind of guy, which media outside of comics (aside from the 1950s Cap) tends to shift towards. The most encouraging thing for me about the Marvel Universe to that point was Chris Evans' Captain America. He is everything that I want him to be. It's perfect. Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man both reflects and shapes Tony of today. Chris Hemsworth's Thor is accurate in power and humility and dear lord he is huge. Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, while so far only seen through wider lenses, both seem pretty nicely tuned.

BUT EVEN THAT is not the most brilliant thing to me. Good characterization is obviously very important but it only required someone along the line to read a comic book or two to understand the characters. The most brilliant thing to me is the peppering in of other characters in the movies. Pepperpottsering in of other characters. Because...because Pepper Potts has been... Anyway, the first Iron Man movie saw James Rhodes and Pepper and Happy Hogan throughout the movie, which was kind of cool but all are very strictly relegated to Iron Man's universe so none were a stretch. They're a supporting cast, no matter what any might have gone on to do in the rest of the 616. It was the introduction of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury that really changed the game. Suddenly the whole universe was open. Iron Man 2 introduced Black Widow, who has acted as an Iron Man supporting cast character but is WAY bigger to the extended universe than, say, Rhodes or Pepper. Thor sort of introduced Hawkeye but didn't throw in too much else (a whole ton of not-so-subtle winks) aside from the Asgard crew and Cap couldn't really go beyond people in World War II. They still threw in a young Howard Stark as a somewhat important character. Avengers, then, was the culmination of everything and it was amazing. The movie was good, it was fun, we got to see Cap and Iron Man and Thor and the Hulk on the big screen exactly the way we all would have wanted to see them, the way none of us could have dreamed we'd get to.

So now we enter Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and everything's coming up Milhouse. Iron Man 3 is going to stick mostly to the Iron Man corner of the world but we could certainly see a couple introductions here or there (fingers crossed for Carol Danvers). Thor 2 sounds like it'll likely still keeping itself to the other eight realms that aren't Midgard (though Christopher Eccleston will also be there so THAT's neat). CAP, though, CAP 2 is going to be HUGE. We're likely going to see an extension of Black Widow's role, the introduction of the Falcon, and the Winter Soldier. I can't say how excited I am for this movie so I won't try here. What I will say is that this sprinkling in of characters here and there, few enough so as not to overwhelm but more than enough to create a bigger universe, is  being handled PERFECTLY. It's reason enough to be excited by all this, even if you're not really a comic fan. If you're a fan of movies and of stories and of characters, this universe should excite you. This doesn't even get INTO Guardians of the Galaxy, which could easily incorporate others like Nova or whoever else (not Silver Surfer, Fox has the rights to that guy). It's a tragedy they don't have the rights to the X-Men or to Spider-Man because this universe would have even THAT much more depth. So if you take anything away from this post, take away the fact that Sony should give back Spider-Man and that Fox should give back X-Men, or at least that they should all work out some kind of deal where Marvel gets to borrow them. Guys, I'm all for that. For the good of the art.