Month: August 2015

This is not a review of the new Fantastic Four movie.

filed under Categories movie reviews 6 Comments

[…but the SPOILER ALERT is in place in case you want to know NOTHING about the new film]

So one of the questions I heard a lot over the course of my Wednesday was “did you see the Deadpool trailer, and as I type this I still haven’t see the main trailer, which is one of those naughty “red band” trailers that doesn’t censor things like “fuck” or “shit” or other words I would never, ever use on my site. However, I did see the trailer-for-the-trailer which is a thing we do now I guess, and I suppose it was amusing enough. However, I’m one of those funnybook-readin’ guys that never really got into Deadpool. I mean, I get the character’s appeal, I’m glad people are really into him, and I really, really hope Marvel doesn’t burn people out on him anytime soon, like the last time Deadpool was prominent in the marketplace. Or maybe I’m thinking of the Punisher. Or Wolverine. Or Ghost Rider. Anyway, you get my point.

Oh, okay, after the end of that paragraph and the beginning of this one I went ahead and watched the full trailer, since I was going to have to copy the URL for the link above anyway. It’s…well, it’s a lot bloodier than I was expecting, and the CGI Deadpool mask actually worked okay (putting half-lie to the whole “don’t make my costume green or animated” gag, referencing Ryan Reynolds’s’ previous superhero role). I can see parents taking their kids to see this new Marvel superhero movie, expecting more of the usual formula, and getting blindsided by the usual formula plus sex and George Carlin’s Seven Words, and never going to a Marvel movie ever again. Or maybe this is just what the superhero movie marketplace needed, and Deadpool will be the greatest cinematic achievement in film history, crashing economies as every available dollar, euro and Geoffrey Buck gets sucked into box offices around the world. Or maybe nobody will see it all. I’m definitely putting my dime on one of those options, or somewhere between. That’s right, that’s my position and I’m sticking to it, and I don’t care who’s offended.

Speaking of Marvel movies nobody’s seeing, the latest in what apparently will be a long line of Fantastic Four reboots, stretching (heh) out into infinity is opening this week. Or has opened. Or will opened. Regardless, word on the ol’ Internet superhighway is that…well, it ain’t good. Which is a shame, because I noted on this site a while back that the trailer made it look less like a superhero movie and more like a high-end science fiction film, and that seemed like a good way to go. And despite reaction, I still kind of want to see it, maybe via Netflix someday rather than enduring a theater visit, if only to enjoy the cinematography and effects and to see maybe if Mr. Fantastic’s stretchy powers actually work onscreen this time.

What bothers me most is that Doctor Doom once again is given superpowers from the accident that transforms everybody, like in the FF films from a decade ago. I mean, yeah, I can see the filmmakers wanting to make sure Doom seems like he can stand on his own against the Fantastic Four by ramping up his special abilities, because as we know there’s no way an audience is going to accept just a more-or-less normal guy in a metal suit in a superhero film. But as I said on Twitter just the other day:


…and granted, Doom did steal the Surfer’s powers in Rise of the Silver Surfer, so that movie at least had that. But as I lamented last year:


It’s like they’re afraid to let Stan and Jack’s creation be Stan and Jack’s creation. Yes, some compromises and changes need to be made…it’s not the early 1960s anymore, and film ain’t comics, but surely there must be a way to capture the essence of the original stories while making them appeal to modern movie audiences. Or maybe there isn’t. Maybe there’s just a magic there that can never translate. Almost wish Marvel’s film studio could get the rights back to the FF, because they’ve had a stronger history getting these characters onscreen and making them appealing.

Also I’m annoyed because I want them to do enough FF movies in a row without rebooting so that maybe we can get an actual, real, live-action Galactus onscreen (and not that stupid smoke cloud from the FF Silver Surfer film). Ooh, and the Watcher, too, so long as I’m dreaming, and if they don’t make him look like the Queen of Hearts from that Tim Burton Alice film, what with that big ol’ noggin of his.

Let me leave you with some words to think about, from Twitter pal Steven:

But will either of these projects tell us which first issues will be hot hot HOT?

filed under Categories pal plugging, self-promotion 5 Comments

So a long time ago, Alan David Doane asked me to contribute a regular column to his website Comic Book Galaxy. That monthly column, Behind the Counter, ran for a little over a year and a half, until CBG underwent…a retooling? A brief hiatus? I don’t recall now, but it was fun to do and I’m glad Alan gave me the opportunity to do it.

Alan continued blogging at Trouble with Comics, which he just recently relaunched with a whole new slate of contributors, including yours truly (and a few others who are participating but didn’t get their bios in on time, you guys ‘n’ gals).

Now, I warned Alan that between my own site and that store of mine, I’m probably not left with a lot of time or material to contribute there. However, one of the regular features is a roundup of responses to a weekly question, which sounded like fun to me, so that’s where you’ll likely see my input on that site. This week’s question is “Which single creator most influenced your perception of the artform?” and while I’m sure you all think I’m gonna answer “Ernie Bushmiller” or “Frank Miller” or “Alan Mooremiller” or “Charles Miller Schulz,” I think my response may surprise you.

• • •

Speaking of this sort of thing, Tom Spurgeon just released the first bit of business from his Comics Report project, the monthly comics magazine you can support right here for a practically-free two bucks a month. It’s an interview with cartoonist Keiler Roberts, and this preview gives us a sneak peek at the layout and design of the magazine, which is very nicely done. The aforementioned Alan (David Doane, not Mooremiller) has a review of that very thing on the also aforementioned Trouble with Comics site.

Now it used to be, back in the olden days when I had this now nigh-mythical thing called “free time,” I would regularly scour the new comics ‘zines as they came in. Amazing Heroes, Comics Interview, Comics Journal, and so on…I would absorb these cover to cover, even reading the articles and interviews I wasn’t especially interested in. As these faded away, only to be supplanted by Wizard and Hero and other magazines that…were less to my taste, shall we say, I sort of fell out of the ‘zine reading thing, though I’d still pick up the occasional decades-old Comics Reader I was missing from my run, and maybe, like, one of Roy Thomas’s Two-Morrows mags if something caught my eye. And of course there were comics news sites on this Internet thing, and comics blogs, but feh, who wants to read a comics blog?

It looks as if Spurgeon’s The Comics Report may be a return to the more in-depth comics mag of yesteryear while maintaining the ease of online convenience we’re all accustomed to now. I can’t wait to see the final product. It’s only two bucks a month, like I said. That’s only half the cost of Age of Ultron Versus Marvel Zombies, and I’m sure The Comics Report will be at least twice as good.