Posts tagged comics

The Movie
Iron Man 3 starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, and Sir Ben Kingsley
Written by Drew Pearce and Shane Black
Directed by Shane Black

Tweet the Plot (140 Characters or Less)
Tony Stark seriously ticked people off in 1999 leading to terrorism, exploding people, & the Stark Mansion getting blown up. Also? Tennesee!

Who will like it?
This is part three, so we pretty much at this point know what we’re getting. Do you like superheroes? Do you like Robert Downey, Jr. doing Robert Downey, Jr. things? Do you like your summer blockbusters with a dash of snark? Do you like robots? Do you like cameos from other superheroes after the credits? If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions, you’re going to be pleased with FeMan the Third.

Who won’t like it?
This is a crowd pleaser popcorn flick. There are obviously some people that feel those type of movies are beneath them. Obviously, this movie is not going to garner an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Individuals that get incredibly frustrated with plot holes will probably find things with which to get incredibly frustrated. But again, it’s a crowd pleaser. I’m a solid DC guy and even I enjoy the Marvel cinematic adventures of Tony Stark.

Favorite Random Scene
Hold up…I should probably throw up the spoiler warning and then put in a jump for those that haven’t seen the movie yet. 

Be Warned: Spoilers Follow.

Read more …

Well, it’s the last day of the year and I haven’t yet posted a “Best of 2012” list. I don’t want to lose my blogging license, so here are some awards for the arts and literature (perhaps we could call them the Dragon Awards? Nah.) that I experienced in the past twelve months. I’ll make a few comments here and there. Let’s go. I should probably alert you that some spoilers lie within.

Most Gaping Plot Hole in a Superhero Movie
(Tie) The Healing of Bruce Wayne’s Broken Back & The Hulk Suddenly Being Able to Control His Hulkness
The Dark Knight Rises got a lot of flak for its plot holes, but The Avengers had a few big ones itself. Just because your movie is fun, doesn’t give it a free ride for being Swiss cheesy. Enjoyed both movies though.

Best Book About How We Read the Bible
(Tie) The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith & A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans
Two very different, but very important books. TBMI takes the broad view and examines interpretive pluralism and the problem it causes for biblicism. It’s the more scholarly side. AYoBW on the other hand is one woman’s story, a smart, funny, and meaningful one at that. Both are great conversation starters.

Show That Should Be More Popular and I Have No Idea Why It Isn’t
Parks & Recreation
I love Community. I think it’s one of the best shows on TV. But I also understand why it’s not going to be a massive hit. Parks & Rec though? One of the best written shows on TV. It’s smart and a ton of heart. It has a deep bench of supporting characters and Pawnee has become the most fully realized town since Springfield. Yet millions more people watch Two and a Half Men. This is why you can’t have nice things, America.

Read more …

In honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Death of Superman story, which was what got me interested in comics, I am recounting the story to the best of my memory. It is meandering and not entirely accurate. You can read Part 1 here.

So Doomsday has just annihilated the Justice League and is destroying everything in his path. The good news, if you could call it that, is that the destruction has been in less densely populated areas. But all that is about to change. He is about to turn his attention to Metropolis. Why, you ask? Professional wrestling.

At some point in the wanton destruction, a television captures Doomsday’s attention. On said television is an ad for a professional wrestling match in Superman’s hometown. The promise of pre-scripted violence apparently intrigues the alien behemoth because he mutters, “Muhhhh-traaaa-plssssss.” No big deal. It’s not like he can figure out how to get to the city. After all, he’s a seemingly mindless alien. It’s not like he can read English.

Wait, he can read English? Later on, Doomsday sees an interstate sign declaring Metropolis is something like 300 miles away. Ol’ D-Day reads the sign and repeats “Muhhh-traaaa-plsssss?” He’s now following the signs to that shining, densely populated city. Now I realize this is comic books and there are Grand Canyon sized chasms over which we must take leaps of logic. But mindless killing machine hears a word in a foreign language, then sees that written word amongst many other written words, and makes the connection? Seriously? It’s a fairly big plot hole.

The other big plot hole? Where on earth are the other superheroes? Seriously, this guy destroyed the JLA. Superman is the only one still fighting him and even he is getting punched into the stratosphere every so often allowing Doomie to make progress to Metropolis. Are you telling me that Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Batman and his batplane, and all the other superheroes were somehow indisposed? Were they busy? Did they just figure, “Eh, it looks bad now, but Kal will pull this out. He always does.” Superfriends, my foot.

Read more …

Last night, I read that “The Death of Superman” storyline is celebrating its 20th anniversary. In November of 1992, my dad, like scores of others, bought Superman #75 and the preceding Doomsday saga in hopes that they would become massively valuable collector’s items. It didn’t. What it did do was turn my brother and me into big Superman fans.

Since I am sleep-deprived from Jim waking up before dawn two consecutive days and should wait until I’m a little more awake to write for church and school, I decided it would be a fun writing exercise for me to try to re-tell the plot of those issues as best as I can remember it. It should go without saying that this telling will be meandering and not entirely accurate.

Our story opens as all great stories do: with underground monsters seeking to wage war on the over world. The city of Metropolis has a massive society living in the tunnels and sewers beneath the streets. This society consists of monsters forced underground because they have been rejected by society. Some are peaceful creatures that only want to be accepted while others are militants seeking to overthrow that which fears them. It’s basically Subterranean Homeless X-Men.

Superman is friends with the good monsters because Superman is a standup guy that sees value in all creatures. The good monsters (not to be confused with a quality Jars of Clay album) need Superman’s help because the bad monsters are making their life pretty miserable. Amongst the bad monsters is a giant rock dude with tusk-like things around his head and a machine gun-toting, blue anthropomorphic ram named Ramses. I only mention Ramses because there were a ton of Ramses in the first level of the SNES Death and Return of Superman game and you could toss those dudes all over the place.

Read more …

In a rough draft of a blog I have yet to publish, I go off on a tangent about time travel and the unspoken rule that the first thing you’re supposed to do is go kill Hitler. Ethically, I don’t think I can kill a man, even Hitler, and so I said the first thing I would do is go back in time to place baby Hitler with a wonderful and nurturing Jewish family. It was a throwaway comment but it gave me what I think is a great idea so indulge me for a moment…

Two men wake up in a top secret facility. There is no reason they should be in the same room. There is no reason that they should even be in the same time. They are Francis of Assisi and Desmond Tutu. Separated by centuries, neither of them knows the other but before they can speak they notice a third person in the room dressed in all white.

“Who are you? Where are we?” Tutu asks.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” The Stranger answers, “but I have been told we have been given an assignment?”

“What assignment?” answers Francis with surprise that he can both understand and speak English.

The Stranger pulls out some sort of recording device and presses play. “This.”

“Gentlemen, you have been assembled because of your expertise in peacemaking and reconciliation. For reasons I cannot explain to you now, you have each been pulled from your native era. You are presently outside the time stream itself, but that will soon change. You will find yourselves nomads in the realm of history. You will not know when or where you will be going. But wherever you go, your mission is to resolve some of the greatest crises this world has ever encountered. Your order is to do this without taking a life. We cannot stop you from killing, but know that the ramifications of such an action would be catastrophic. When you have accomplished your mission, you will each be returned to your home. You are not alone in your mission, others will come to your aid. Though you do not know each other, you are a team. You are Peace Time. History is depending on you.”

Thus begins my ultra-unorthodox comic book series Peace Time. We follow Francis, Desmond, and The Stranger as they bounce through history, risking life and limb, but always turning the other cheek. All the while, they begin to encounter another group bent on sabotaging their work at any costs. Can they trust each other and the mysterious entity that sent them through time? And just who is The Stranger? Along with physical peril, Peace Time faces tough philosophical questions: Should they even be changing history? Could their changes possibly alter their own history or even knock them out of existence? (The answers: Yes and maybe)

Issue #1 would be the setup plus find baby Hitler a loving home. The tension of each story would be alleviated by an offbeat rapport among our trio as they try to make sense of a ridiculous situation. Because a comic book based on the premise of non-violence is a bit of an odd duck, it would probably be cancelled by issue #5, which is when Francis uses his ability to relate to animals to bring peace between warring dinosaur tribes.

Would people really want to read the adventures of a crack team of peacemakers traveling through time? I doubt it, but I totally would. We won’t delve into what that says about me.

So a year ago, DC Comics (kind of) blew up their comics universe and (kind of) rebooted everything by canceling all their comics and starting fresh with #1 issues of 52 titles. Amongst the many heroes that were getting different looks, stories, and histories was Superman.

In spite of some hesitation about what they were going to do to my favorite childhood superhero, I walked in to the local comic book store that I frequented until my early teens and bought Action Comics #1. As I wrote a year ago, I loved it and decided to stick with the rebooted adventures of Superman.

Now it’s a year later. What are my thoughts on the continued adventures of the (kind of new) Man of Steel? Glad you asked.

The hook of these revamped tales of the Last Son of Krypton was that he was more a call-back to the Golden Age Superman stories. This Superman was more about sticking up for the little guy and the societal forces that pushed them down than just super-punching powered villains in the sky.

Read more …