Comic Review: Black Panther #1

    Black Panther has been one of those Marvel characters (and there are many) that I’ve wanted to like more than I actually do like when I read the comics. Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Captain America; they’re all cool character concepts, but not often actually written well. And even when they do have good writers behind them, they’re often weighted down by too much Marvel baggage. But Black Panther taps into things I really like. Namely hidden civilizations and technological utopias. There’s a bit of The Phantom, a bit of Tarzan, a bit of all those lost cities stories. But it’s also refreshing for the king of the secret African city to be African and not some lost blonde European.

    Issue 1 of the new Black Panther series has some of the problems that these Marvel (and DC) first issues always have. It’s set in the larger universe of ‘event comics’ and what have you. It’s a re-launch of an older title. So, there’s already a ton of history; a lot of stories in progress. Here we have T’challa recently taking back his throne. His sister, recently queen and wearer of the Black Panther name, apparently dead. The nation of Wakanda is in disarray. And things seem pretty bad. There are terrorists attacking, a disaster to recover from, and possible rot from within. So, there’s a lot of dramatic tension in the first issue. But I can’t help feel thrown into the fire, without nearly enough info see a way out. There’s a brief intro in the beginning of the comic, but I think I should have sat down and read Wikipedia for a few hours to find out what’s going on in the Marvel universe right now, so I could put it all into context.

And, being a ‘floppy,’ monthly issue, it’s darned short. There are a lot of reasons I wasn’t really into comics until the collected trades and graphic novels became ubiquitous, but the unsatisfactory fraction of a story you get in a monthly issue was up there. There’s only 22 pages of story here. It doesn’t even feel like a chapter of a book, or an episode of a TV show. Plus, being from Marvel (DC is as guilty), it’s also unconscionably expensive. Marvel has the resources and the print-run size to be able to charge less, but they charge more. You see it in their trade paperbacks, too. A book that would be $9.99 to $14.99 from a smaller company is $19.99 to $29.99 from Marvel. This is $4.99. Five bucks for 22 pages and some ads. I was finished reading the whole thing in what, maybe 10 minutes? Maybe.

So, issue #1 introduced a bunch of things which seem like they might be interesting. And for contemporary, mainstream, superhero comic art, it looks pretty good. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes comic book dialog competently (something that doesn’t always happen when a traditional prose writer tries to transition). But overall, I was left unsatisfied. Perhaps reading a full story arc would change that. Perhaps I’m just not interested in reading about a Wakanda and T’challa plagued with self-doubt and sadness. Time will tell.

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of Metal! (Matt’s Picks)

    With Man of Steel, the latest and I hope greatest (or even pretty good) adaptation of the ever popular Superman, hitting screens this weekend, Brad and I are taking a look at some of our favorite movie metals…or metal movies.

5.  Fantastic Four:  Rise of the Silver Surfer:  I know, it wasn’t that good a movie.  But when is it ever gonna make one of these lists.  And it’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to having a Silver Surfer movie.

4.  The Golden Child:  I-I-I-I-I want the kniiiiiife.

3.   Heavy Metal:  Do you have your one way ticket to midnight?

2.  Goldmember:  When you loose your man-parts in an unfortunate smelting accedent, then you tell me if it’s weird to be Dutch.

1.  The Iron Giant:  “Superman.”

-Matt

Nothing's more Metal than Dethklok

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/26/13-6/1/13)

    On Sunday morning, I muscled my way through Silver Surfer: Parable.  That could have been a heck of a lot better, with a writer instead of Stan Lee.  And I read a few science fiction short stories.  Expediter, a Cold War story with a decidedly subversive bent and dashes of 1984, by Mack Reynolds.  One-Shot by James Blish, another Cold War tale that wasn’t really science fiction as far as I could tell.  Shipwreck in the Sky, a very brief story by Eando Binder.  And Zen, by Jerome Bixby.  All of ‘em from a collection of classic sci-fi tales that cost me like 2.99 or something on my Nook.  Still a dozen or more stories to read.

The Great Gatsby:  I had heard a lot of opinions about this movie before I saw it, most of them negative.  In fact, not just negative; almost hateful.  People really didn’t like this film.  I guess I get that.  If you don’t get into the style of the movie, there’s no way you’re going to enjoy it.  But once you get past the specifics of its rather outlandish and theatrical style, I don’t think there was enough of anything one way or another to warrant deep feelings of any kind.  It’s a rather workman-like adaptation of the novel, with actors all doing OK jobs portraying the characters.  Nobody stands out, except maybe Toby McGuire as the narrator.  He kind of sucks.  He’s playing an almost Ewan McGreggor type ‘naïve to the point of parody’ character, but unlike McGreggor, he doesn’t have the charm to pull it off.  I found the film frustrating because it didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind.  It’s too crazy for a normal drama, and not nearly crazy enough for a fantastical Jazz Age myth.  The director did much better hitting the right bugnuts tone in Moulin Rouge, and whoever made Idlewild did a better job of capturing the era’s strange fantasy (both of those films used contemporary music to better effect).  I like where Baz Luhrmann was headed with this movie, but he didn’t get there, and that’s too bad.  And like his Australia, the first half is much better than the second, though Gatsby is far more coherent, likely owing to their near slavish devotion to the plot and dialog of the novel.

Nosferatu, Phantom Der Nacht:  “The Master has arrived!”  Mad bastard Werner Herzog and madder bastarder Klaus Kinski take on the classic vampire tale, Dracula, seen through the filter of the silent film Nosferatu.  Bruno Ganz gives Jonathan Harker more personality than he is normally portrayed with (or written with, for that matter).  The location shooting and the music are extremely moody and effective.  Kinski is disgusting, but that’s not new.  Bald head, white makeup, and little rat teeth make an already terrifying man slightly more terrifying.  Admittedly, I’m not a vampire movie fan, and not especially enamored of Dracula adaptations.  But this, along with the silent film of the same name, are probably my two favorites.  This also seems the most spirited and stylistically interesting version I’ve seen (an argument could be made for the Spanish language version made by Universal, but meh).  There are some interesting variations on the original, like Lucy (played by Goth princess Isabelle Adjani) being Jonathan’s wife (Mina seems to be a housekeeper or some such), and it being Lucy who takes up the battle against the Count, being a much stronger person than seemingly anyone else in the film.

Embryo:  “I’m also what I believe is called a ‘junkie.’” The atrocious transfer on the DVD makes it hard to know what the quality of the film was originally.  Of course, seeing the boom mike and/or the shadow of the boom mike isn’t a good sign.  Still, when Rock Hudson develops a super-smart dog with a crazy-science drug cocktail, I got on board.  Of course, the next step is jumping into totally unethical human testing, which needless to say results in a Frankenstein’s Monster.  This came out during the initial explosion of anti-science films that we’re still seeing the blast waves from to this day.  Like pretty much every movie that involves an artificially enhanced human, said superhuman becomes intellectually (and possibly physically) superior, then subsequently violently evil.  Erg.  The music is awful made-for-TV soap crap.  The massive computer room sequence, where you know your laptop (if not your phone) could run circles around that warehouse full of dinosaurs, really puts technologic advances in perspective.  I do want Number One, though.  That’s got to be about the coolest dog ever, and his murderous rages seem mostly reserved for annoying little yappy dogs and bitchy sister-in-laws, so no problem there.  This is 70s PG, so there’s some nudity and see-through clothing.  The oversensitive and repressed should beware.  This would have an R rating by today’s puritanical, sex-fearing MPAA (graphic murder is OK; bare breasts are evil).

The Brain Machine:  “Anyway, in the Land of the Blind, the one eyed man is king.  …Nuts?”  Boom mike!  Evil, shadowy government and corporate interests are forcing a scientist to do experiments on four human subjects.  I guess.  This film is shoddy, with weird (bad) editing and overuse of what appear to be stock establishing shots.  There’s an interesting movie here, but it’s lost in the spotty script, low budget, and terrible technique.

The Stunt Man:  “I’ve fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature.”  Casting a movie is very important.  Obviously, you want great actors.  Sometimes, you get a great actor, but the rest of the cast isn’t up to the job.  Sometimes, you have one of the greatest, Peter O’Toole, cast alongside one of the worst, Steve Railsback.  For some confounded reason, in the last 70s and early 80s, there seemed to be people who thought Railsback was going to be the new ‘it’ guy, kind of like how they keep trying to make Josh Hartnet a star, but it won’t take.  He’s bloody awful, and it’s made all the more obvious when he’s in scenes with O’Toole.  This movie is all about movies and their artificiality, keeping the viewer on constant edge, wondering what’s real and what’s not.  It reminds me a bit of Walker, where film and reality seem to trade back and forth, while trying to make a statement I just don’t understand.  Barbara Hershey sure is pretty in a very 70s kind of way.

Beowulf:  “How ‘bout a quick gobble?”  One of the greatest heroes in literature gets a lavish CG animated treatment, which shockingly manages to capture some of the epic’s magic.  The sins of a king come back to haunt his kingdom.  But glory-seeking Beowulf and his men are ready to come and dish out some bloody retribution.  This film version does not, as so many adaptations do, try to modernize the hero too much.  He’s not a nice and sensitive guy who miraculously embodies current American social mores.  He’s a brutal, violent, glory hunting, boastful bastard.  I still favor Odysseus, a man unwilling to bow to the will of the gods, and perfectly willing (possibly glad) to spit in their faces.  But Beowulf is up there.  He’s flippin’ hardcore.  Violence, sex, revenge, heroics, guilt, redemption, and madness.  Grand stuff.

Enter the Dragon:  “A woman like that could teach you a lot about yourself.”  Thanks again to the Alamo Drafthouse and co-Dork Brad, I got out to see this on the big screen, and it was all kinds of fun.  From the start, you’ve got loads of bad dubbing, awkward humor, strange flashbacks, and the pop-philosophy of Bruce Lee.  With cohorts Jim Kelly and John Saxon, Lee gets all up in evil martial arts master Han’s smiling face.  And no army of unfortunate looking henchmen are going to stop him.  Just a darned fine bit of 70s exploitation.

Where Danger Lives:  “We both got what we wanted…after a fashion.”  A poor sucker gets hooked into some bad, bad business.  Then it’s a slow, steady descent into a mad hell.  While not at all a great Noir, this one is a fun watch, and where it finally arrives is pretty nutty.  Again, not great.  But worth watching.  There’s some interesting technical aspects, including extremely long shots with few cuts.
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Tension:  “I got a file goes back further than you’d like to remember and up to where you wish you could forget.”  An uptight milktoast is married to a fickle, slutty monster.  I mean MONSTER.  He loves her, for some danged reason.  But when she pushes and pushes and pushes, something’s gotta give.  Obviously, the next step is to create a new persona, then harass, threaten, and eventually murder her boyfriend.  Of course, the fact that you start dating a smokin’ hottie, who isn’t a spawn of the devil, while living in your new persona should not distract you from your duty.  Obligatory twists and turns, and suddenly the cops are on the trail, but who killed who, when, where, and why?  The cast is especially enjoyable to watch, even if the circumstances are outlandish.  This one is very, very weird in its plotting, but loads of fun.  Hard to describe really.  But multiple people have excellent and unusual characters that they get to play with.  The cop, the pharmacist, the other cop, the hottie, the monster, even the a-hole boyfriend.

8 ½:  Well, that was something.  Way back in the prehistory of this Dork, in those dark days before Bob Dobbs invented the internet, a handsome young Matt made his way to the dusty backest of the back rooms at Dirty Daves to paw over obscure titles in the Art & Foreign section, hoping to discover a hidden gem (or at least some of that Euro-nudie stuff) he gave that Fellini fellow a try.  And it sucked.  I don’t know what I watched, Roma was one, I’m sure.  Anyway, I hated it.  Fellini and that awful Russian version of Solaris nearly turned me off of foreign films.  Fast forward 20 years, and I’m sitting down at the AFI Silver to check out a screening of the classic and much lauded 8 ½.  Well, nothing has changed.  I hated it.  It’s such a self serving, self aggrandizing, self indulgent bunch of artsy-fartsy crap I was shifting in my seat like a kid with ADD after like 10 minutes.  While the lead actor was obviously good and there are some funny moments, I went from mild discomfort to outright hatred somewhere near the last half hour.  Just in case you haven’t picked up on what he’s trying to say (Helen Keller couldn’t have missed it), the last half hour is a full on audio-visual assault that blares at you ‘GET IT?!  GET IT?!  GET IT?!’ like you’re a slow child struggling with the subtleties of Dick & Jane.  But hey, at least there’s Barbara Steele and her Picasso face.  AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!  Is this a movie that is well liked because people think it’s obscure, but that they ‘get it’?  That’s the only thing I can figure would justify its film-fan street cred.  The problem is, it’s not actually obscure.  Fellini spends the entire movie outright explaining what the movie is about.  Every scene features dialog about what that scene means.  He spells it all out, even spelling out why he doesn’t spell something out, which pretty much spells it out.  Gah!  Anyway, the movie is crap.  Leave this to the oh so clever hipsters and college film professors, and watch something better.

Needs more clowns!

Splinter:  The X-Files/The Thing/Fringe type ‘creature’ in this movie is pretty cool, and there are some good effects and gore.  The actual characters aren’t too good, though they’re not as completely useless as a lot of modern horror characters tend to be.  Still, not good.  As always in movies like this, I kept yelling “Stop talking! Start running!”  Why, when speed is of the essence, do horror movie characters feel the need to drag ass.  It doesn’t ramp up tension, it makes me angry.  Still, it’s mildly enjoyable.  There’s potential here for something more.

The sequel should be called 'Shredder.'

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter:  “On lonely nights, I shall think of you.”  This is an odd, but very good little Hammer Horror gem.  Horst Janson is the dashing blonde hero, Kronos.  And the Sweet Mother! hot Caroline Munro is the gypsy girl.  A supporting cast of solid character actors helps keep it all going.  It’s surprisingly funny, with a stripe of humor black as pitch.  It’s too bad that this was in the final days of Hammer’s glory days.  A series of Kronos adventures could have been very cool.

    I started watching Space: Above & Beyond.  I’d seen the first few episodes back in the Dark Ages of the 90s, and I’d enjoyed it.  Watching it again, I can’t help but be frustrated by the potential unrealized.  The general idea, telling the story of a group of new soldiers struggling through a war with an alien menace, has plenty of potential.  The design and setting are pretty good.  But the CGI is rough, and the main cast intolerable.  The two lead guys are a bundle of cliché packed in bad acting.  It feels like the show was put together by writers with ideas, and all the writing around the core cast was done by producers (‘Let’s not try anything new or potentially contravercial, only things that have been done time and again in every other TV series.’).  Hawkes is absolutely dreadful with all his bad-boy posturing and put-upon rage.  But West, with his crying and teeth gnashing, and idiotic pursuit of his wife…UGH.  The lingo feels fairly accurate, like they had an actual Marine advisor.  Though shows like this are kind of inevitable, helping to change the status quo, while not managing to survive themselves, it is too bad this didn’t come along 10 years later, when budget and unwritten rules of TV production could have  been different.  Battlestar Galactica has a similar vibe, but came out at the right time.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol:  “I would like to show you my collection of art.”  World travel, wild stunts, sexy dames, and weird high-tech gadgets.  No, it’s not James Bond, it’s the MI team up to their old tricks.  While the first movie was meh, and the second a steaming turd, the third and fourth have substantially improved the franchise, finally getting back to the roots of the original show.  Something about this one, the way their tech and their stunts don’t always work, where they miss their mark or slip or whatever, is a nice change of pace.  They’re not being stupid, just not always getting it right.

    On Saturday, I caught Studio 360 on NPR.  It was a whole episode on Superman, as an American icon.  Plenty of interesting stuff.  It even reveals how some of the worst elements of the character came about (he started flying on the radio, not in the comics).  But there is something enduring about his honorable, honest, and empathetic heroics.  I’m not a fan of the character generally, because it seems to be mostly an excuse to write oneself into a corner, then magically break out of it (like the last season or so of Doctor Who).

    And on Saturday night, I took a trip home.  Well, to the place I’ve always kind of felt should have been my home.  I decided to start watching Twin Peaks again.  It’s been 10 or so years, and it felt like the time was right.  There’s a magic, right out of the gate, about that crazy little town.  And if ever there were a place I’d fit in, I think it’s there.  I could go fishing with Pete, get some wisdom from Big Ed, avoid the Log Lady, crush on Norma over some cherry pie and darned fine coffee, and catch a show at the Road House.  Oh, sure, there’s the occasional alien (?) abduction, serial killing demon, dream dwarf & giant, and what have you.  But it’s a magical place.

-Matt

Comic Review: Silver Surfer - Parable

    Here’s the thing.  I really like the Silver Surfer.  I do.  I think he’s a really cool and interesting character.  Buuuuut, you see, Stan Lee wrote a good deal of his stories and Stan Lee is, um, a terrible writer.  Like Wonder Woman, The Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Cat Woman, and so many more, the core concept of the character is sound, but the execution is almost universally bad.  So, being a glutton for punishment, I’ve read a good deal of Surfer comics, usually gritting my teeth while thinking about how awesome it should be, and how not very good it is.  That same thing happened while reading this volume.  Famed European comic artist Moebius, one of the key visual storytellers of the 70s, whose work frequently graced the pages of Heavy Metal issues I’d sneak peaks at when I was a boy, is a perfect match for the cosmic nomad, and there are some beautiful panels.  But Stan…Oh, Stan.

    You see, Stan Lee is an important figure in comics.  That can’t really be debated.  But, like August Derleth in Lovecraft circles and George Lucas & Gene Rodenberry in sci-fi circles, his actual ability in the arena is…not so good.  I must admit that his writing in this volume is much better than what he was doing in the 60s.  Though he crams entirely too many words into each panel, without saying much of anything, he thankfully avoids describing what we can plainly see in gratuitous captions (Check out early Surfer, FF, or Spider-man for panels where the character says what he’s doing, the caption describes the action, and the picture shows you what’s happening.  It’s a visual medium, Stan, we know what’s happening because there’s a picture!).  And as bad as the writing in this is, it’s still better than Chris Claremont.  But his flowery, overly dramatic dialog is painfully silly and out of step.  His heavy handed moralizing isn’t even subtle enough for the worst episodes of original Trek (Eeb planista!).  There’s a phenomena friends and I have come to call the ‘Marvel crowd.’  This is the crowd of people who change opinions and moods on a dime.  You can see them in the awful Spiderman movies, in the Fantastic Four films, and even in non-Marvel films like The Dark Knight.  Occasionally I’ll spot a Marvel crowd in film unrelated to comics at all.  But Marvel Comics have got to be the worst perpetrators of this menace, and Stan Lee seems to be their most fervent perpetrator.  A kind of meta-example of this is the relationship between the X-Men and EVERYONE else in the Marvel Universe.  All normal people hate and fear the X-Men, and want to persecute them.  But few people (unless someone manipulates them…which is extremely easy to do) have any problem whatsoever with the Fantastic Four, Spider-man, or any number of other strange heroes.  That doesn’t make any danged sense.  And that’s plagued Silver Surfer all along.  Everyone hates him.  He villages, stops alien invasions, gets cats out of trees, yet everyone hates him…Um…’cause he’s an alien, er something.  No, it’s because Stan can’t write, and he needs characters to be persecuted so he can slap readers across the face with his ‘shouldn’t we be ashamed of ourselves’ self-hating Liberal mentality.  Parable is all about how people are sheep, anyone with power is evil, the Surfer is like Christ, and Galactus is organized religion.  I even agree with his general thoughts about how religious figureheads are generally power hungry and corrupt, and how some people simply want to be told what to do and what to think, so will go out of their way to put themselves in the power of charismatic leaders.  But the rest of it?  Ugh.

    The volume also contains The Enslavers, written by Lee again, with art by Keith Pollard.  This feels more like classic Surfer stuff, with some nice art, but a pretty silly story.  The villain is pretty lame, and like all too many Silver Surfer stories, it centers around Earth.  But I like the art, and I like that at least sometimes, he gets to do stuff in space.  Considering he’s a ‘cosmic’ character, he spends entirely too much time within Earth’s atmosphere.  The Enslavers sort of feels like a send-off for the Surfer.  Though, honestly, I don’t really know what Marvel has done with him over the years.  He seems to pop up randomly, and there doesn’t seem to be much continuity.

    Here’s hoping that someone with some writing talent and someone with artistic talent will be teamed up in the future on a Silver Surfer project that explores some of the potential in the character, without falling back on Stan Lee’s particular brand of problems.  I do think there’s potential for some compelling and contemplative science fiction stories and philosophical meditations.  Somewhere else I said I wanted a Silver Surfer movie to be a 2001 style trippy flick, and that’s kind of what I want from the comic.  Moebius would have been a great artist to have on that, but Lee was the wrong writer.

Silver Surfer: Parable
Author: Stan Lee
Artists: Moebius and Keith Pollard
Publisher: Marvel Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6209-4

-Matt

A Fistful of Marvel Wannabes! (Matt’s Picks)

    Brad and I have talked about this at length, but it needs to be said again.  The Avengers happened.  Last year, a major Hollywood studio put out  movie based on the long running superhero team comic, The Avengers.  We currently live in a world where Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America have been featured in their own movies and in a movie together.  That’s insane!  But the insanity of that may just be topped next year (it’s next year, right?) when the lead in movie to the Avengers sequel will be the Guardians of the Galaxy.  Wait a tick.  A movie about a tree, a raccoon, and a bunch of other weirdos running around the galaxy fighting the good fight is going to be a tent pole summer picture?  I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore.  It’s all gone mad.  Next thing you know, they’ll be making a movie about a murderous, telekinetic car tire obsessing over a French girl in the desert while a 70s B-movie actor sits in a wheelchair watching (See Rubber!  It’s great!).

    Anyway, if The Avengers can happen, if Iron Man 3 can be hitting the theaters with record breaking box office expectations, if a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is even being discussed, clearly anything can happen.  With that in mind, here’s my list of Marvel comics I want to see hit the big screen.

5:  Who doesn’t want to see a seven foot tall, green woman, in a sharp business suit, trying court cases?  Communists.  That’s who.  I really don’t get She-Hulk.  I mean, she’s green and she’s buff.  But that seems to be where the Hulk connection ends.  I don’t know what’s up with her as a character, beyond that she’s a lawyer or something.  But if years of watching Star Trek taught me anything, it’s that green ladies are pretty keen.  So, whatever.  Get Joss Whedon to write it or something.  I’ll be there.

It's like Boston Legal...With a Hulk.

4:  The Silver Surfer is a cosmic character.  I want to see a movie with the Surfer where he actually travels the spaceways.  I want crazy, trippy, weird science fiction with meditative insanity.  Get me some kind of electronica score (Daft Punk, the Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, whatever).  I want the nebula from The Fountain, the stargate from 2001, and all the nutty, weird visuals our best and brightest can put together.  And I want the Surfer to be the Surfer, dang it.  I don’t want him to spend one minute on the planet Earth.  Not one second.  And yes, I know he appeared in Fantastic Four 2.  But it was hardly his movie.  And he should have his own.

3:  I’ve always liked the look of Black Panther, and I love that he’s the King of a technological utopia hiding in the wilderness of Africa.  It tickles the lost civilization enthusiast in me, as well as my interest in blending high tech utopias in general.  And if I’m not mistaken, the comics at some point had Storm hook up with the King.  Storm is about the only member of the X-Men I find even remotely interesting.  Perhaps a movie about the two of them, set entirely in Africa could be an interesting change of pace for Marvel movies.

2:  I like a lot of stuff.  But two of the things I’ve liked since I can remember are lost civilizations and sexy ladies.  King Kong was an early fascination.  Sheena as well.  Tarzan, obviously (it had ladies!).  So, it’s no shock that I would absolutely love to see Shanna the She-Devil, Ka-Zar, and the rest of the jungle dwelling, dinosaur fighting folk of the Savage Lands get their own movie.  Who else is going to fight the leftover Nazis, nasty lizards, and whatever other wacky stuff is running around in there?  And if she’s standing next to a guy in an animal hide loincloth, it’s automatically not sexist, right?  I think that’s in the Constitution.

1:  A few years back, some two dollar sweatshop movie studio somehow rubbed a magic lamp and made a Man-Thing movie.  With all the quality of a made-for-SyFy crapathon, and all the fidelity of Charlie Sheen on a coke binge (aka Thursdays), it was quickly forgotten by the ten suckers…I mean people, who bothered to watch it (that includes me).  Well, F that movie.  I want to see a Man-Thing film that has something to do with the comic.  I want him to be the semi-sentient guardian of the Nexus of All Realities.  I want him to burn the flesh of the guilty.  I want him to see the realms beyond our perception.  And I want the sleaziest, funniest danged duck, Howard, to pop his pervy little head into our world.  If they can do the Avengers, they can do Doctor Strange, the Man-Thing, Howard the Duck, etc. going against Baron Mordo or whoever, with magic and hallucinations flying this way and that.  The real question is, can we handle the Peanut Butter Barbarian?!  I say, his time has come!

    Obviously, there are some other characters I’d love to see, like Killraven, the original Vision, and Rom.  And there are a couple specific volumes I’d like to see adapted, like Marvels.  But this is a beginning.

I'll get you, you Martian bastards!

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (5/13/12-5/19/12)

So.  Not quite as an exciting week as last, but how could it possibly live up to my own special brand of Shat Attack V madness?  And there was no way I could keep up that pace of pop culture consumption.  But I kept the Star Trek love going this week finishing out the Next Generation movies and venturing back into the other Franchise spin-off shows.  In just a couple weeks The Wife and I will be in Philadelphia for the Wizard World Con, hobnobbing (ie shelling out cash for autographs) with the five Captains:  William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, and Scott Bakula.

The Wife is more than a little familiar with the original series crew and the Next Generation, but before this week she had never seen an episode of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, or Enterprise.  Since all of Star Trekdom is available on Netflix Instant right now, we thought it would be fun to do a little homework in preparation for the Philly signing.  Started her out on the three spin off pilots and I watched The Best of Both Worlds eps as a springboard into First Contact.

But I guess the most exciting thing this week for me was the acquisition of the new Silver Surfer Parable hardcover from Marvel.  I've always wanted to get my hands on the Moebius series, but the two issue arc has been out of print for some time.  The book is paired with Stan Lee's mediocre Enslavers story, but it's worth the extra few bucks to finally have that gorgeous Moebius art in once place.  But more on that book later.

TV OF THE WEEK!

Hell On Wheels Eps 1-5:  I want to LOVE this show, but so far I think it's O...K.  The cast is definitely a solid assembly.  Anson Mount looks and behaves the part.  I've had a soft spot for Common since Smokin' Aces.  And it's great to see DS9's Colm Meaney playing the a-hole business baron.  But HBO's Deadwood casts a mighty large shadow, and for every nifty plot beat in Hell On Wheels I'm reminded of how amazing Deadwood handled this well worn genre.  I'm happy to watch this show, but it's not great.  And I want it to be great.  But, boy, The Swede sure is terrifying.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine "The Emissary" Parts 1 & 2:  After the Original Series and the movies, DS9 is my favorite Trek.  It's a darker universe and it only gets darker as the series progresses.  Sure, the first season is blanketed with obvious WWII, Civil War, Palestinian/Israel on-the-nose metaphors but the space station as Wild West outpost is such a fun setting to exploit, and even when the show reaches it's eye-rolling heights of condescension I'm completely persuaded by this group of characters.  Sure, Kira yells too damn much in the beginning and Sisko is far too harsh/serious/humorless.  But these characters will grow...and it's good enough until The Dominion shows up in the third season to kick it up a notch.

Star Trek Voyager "Caretaker" Parts 1 & 2:  Now, where I enjoy most if not all of the DS9 crew, I pretty much hate every single character in Voyager.  It remains the only Trek show I've never been able to complete, having watched through the first three seasons twice before...maybe with The Wife in tow I'll actually make it through this time.  But she also doesn't seemed to be enthralled by it either.  Now, I will say that I find Robert Picardo to be charming.  But how can you hate on the Joe Dante stalwart, right?  But this Caretaker nonsense?  And the Klingon pretenders, the Kazon?  Lame, lame, lame.

Star Trek Enterprise "Broken Bow" Parts 1 & 2:  Here's a show that never reached its potential.  It was almost there by the fourth season but then came cancellation.  Bummer.  Scott Bakula & Connor Trinneer have a great friendship on screen, and T'Pol is decent once that stick gets removed from her ass.  Even Dr. Phlox is kinda fun.  But Hoshi?  What an annoying whiney whelp.  And Merriwhether? Uh, is there a point to his gee golly blank slate?  No, there is not.  This show works best when it's exploring the new universe.  It's at its weakest when it's blathering on about the temporal cold ware bologna.  Frankly, I'm just biding my time until the fourth season...or when Jeffery Combs' Andorian pops up.

Star Trek The Next Generation "The Best of Both Worlds" Parts 1 & 2:  Two of the better episodes from The Next Generation.  The Borg are a great villain, and probably the best species to spring from Star Trek post TOS.  Unfortunately, this is the last time (not counting First Contact) where they matter at all.  Cuz once "I Borg" occurs, these monsters are neutered.  But The Best of Both Worlds is about as epic as the television shows ever got.  I still remember the first time I saw it on TV, Picard captured & transformed into a robo zombie.  At the time, I found his whole ordeal to be incredibly upsetting.  And Riker having to battle it out with Shelby as they race to Wolf 359?  It's still pretty intense.  If I had any complaints about the show now it would be that it it wraps everything up too quickly and neatly during the climax.  I wish the mental scarring left behind by Locutus was explored further in the show, rather than waiting for the theatrical experience.  But this was pre LOST, pre Battlestar Galactica and Trek was never allowed that kind of serialized growth.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

Star Trek - First Contact:  Not the satisfying Trek sequel I once thought it to be, it's still definitely the best of the Next Gen movies. I wish First Contact took a little more time building the plot and characters before launching into the first Borg Space Battle and the eventual Time Traveling zombie war spearheaded by Alice Krige's floating fleshy halfling. It's nice that Data is less the goofy comic relief as he is in the other Next Gen films, but they should have totally Spocked him at the climax.  As Matt says, this is The Wrath of Khan of Next Gen and it's a fun action film with plenty of Patrick Stewart tommy gun screaming.  Fun, but I will never connect with this crew the way I connect with Kirk, Spock, and Bones.

Exit Through The Gift Shop:  Whether it's bullshit or not, this is a fascinating look into the world of street art and the birth of fanboy wannabe Mister Brainwash. I've never quite understood modern art cuz of my dumb brain but who doesn't love a talking heads documentary, especially one that might be as accurate as Kung Fu Panda. It's definitely entertaining and awkward and I feel for Thierry Guetta's love affair with graffiti artists like Bansky...that is until he starts raking in the dough with his pretender's art show.  But why do I feel so damn manipulated a narrative?  Is this just more Bansky protest art?  Fascinating and I definitely feel 10 x more hipstery once the credits appeared.

Doble Dare:  A solid doc focusing on a couple of female stuntwomen attempting to keep their foothold in the Hollywood machine. Zoe Bell leaves the finale of Xena Warrior Princess and heads into the dreams of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Seasoned professional Jeannie Epper (Wonder Woman, Robocop, Foxy Brown, Romancing the Stone, EVERY MOVIE EVER!) struggles with the business side while still putting her body in harms way for 2 Fast 2 Furious. I wish the film dove even deeper into this mad world of bodily devastation in which a good portion of your favorite films are actually performed by these faceless warriors, but as is, it's a nice glimpse behind the curtain.

The Avengers:  Celebrated a late Mother's Day with The Avengers, and I was quite pleased to see Mom enjoy the film almost as much as I did.  But has the high faded now that I've seen the film four times? Oh, in some respects a high as strong as the one I experienced after the midnight screening was destined to evaporate a little...but! I'm still amazed and in love with Marvel's blockbuster miracle. The chills are still there when Iron Man, Cap, and Thor clash in the woods or when Hulk declares his secret or when Nick Fury goes for that bazooka. And yeah, it's still my favorite film of 2012 so far.  But a word of warning, we plopped down the extra cash for the 3D and I think it's some of the worst post-converted 3D I've experienced.  Unbearably dark and ineffective.  Stay away from the unnecessary high prices, save those bucks for Piranha 3DD.

Freakonomics:  This might have been a little more informative and thought provoking than my typical T&A heavy exploitation, but it's definitely better than reading a book, right?   I finished this film knowing not to trust my realtor or give a damn about cannon fodder 9th graders not interested in bettering their GPAs....was that the point? Probably not. We all just need to find the right incentives to make this world a better place. Good luck.

Star Trek - Insurrection:  Huh, do I now actually prefer Insurrection to First Contact? Damn. I think so. The plot is very much just an extended episode of The Next Generation with Picard & Crew butting in where they're not welcomed after Data short circuits on a mysterious rejuvenating planet.  The film is filled with much wanted character moments for the cast, and since the story is a little more fluffy the interrupting humor (especially the Data jokes) are less infuriating. And Jonathan Frakes finally gets to command the Enterprise and kick a little ass...uh, the joystick controls though, WTF?  But it's 'bout bloody time Riker got in on the action.  Insurrection might not be the cinematic epic we've come to crave from the series, but it's a solid story told better than the other attempted grandiose Next Gen episodes. And it's nice to see some of that DS9 pessimism in the form of Anthony Zerbe's corrupt Federation Admiral.

Star Trek - Nemesis:  "I'm a mirror for you as well." There might be a few interesting ideas at play here in the final outing for The Next Generation crew, but the execution from both screenwriter John Logan and director Stuart Baird is handled horribly. Maybe all the blame should not be placed at their feet, it's obvious that Paramount slashed the budget again with some of the weakest CG of the franchise, but there are so many eye-rolling groans birthed from this narrative that it genuinely taints this crews previous adventures.  From the introduction of the halfwit android B4 (giving Brent Spiner more awkward laughs) to the over-reaching pursed lipped performance from Tom Hardy to the wasted Nosferatu wannabe Remans. It's all swing, no hits with Nemesis.

Star Trek:  In a lot of ways, my reaction to the 2009 Star Trek was very similar to my reaction to this year's The Avengers. How did they make that work!?!? And the fact that it's so bloody good is a genuine geek miracle! JJ Abrams and his crew of Star Wars fanboys bring their action oriented sensibilities to the Star Trek universe and breathe some much needed life into the rigor-mortised franchise (again, Nemesis...sigh). Yes, this will never own my heart in the same manner as the original series crew, but Christ Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban shockingly capture their spirit. Plus, the epic space battles involving the USS Enterprise and the climactic phaser fight in the haul of the Borgged Narada is something we've never seen before in Trek. So give it a rest if you want to whine about lens flares or split hairs over alternative universes. This is a Star Trek film I never thought would bless us, a nearly 200 million dollar human adventure that raises the stakes in a universe that had grown pretty cold after Next Gen tried their best.

COMICS OF THE WEEK!

Silver Surfer - Parable:  "See Now What Such Blind Devotion Has Wrought!" Marvel patriarch Stan Lee and European Art Sensation Moebius team up for this insanely broad story that pits The Silver Surfer and his Power Cosmic against his former master, and current World-Eater, Galactus. Set in the near future, the destroyer of worlds lands in the middle of a nameless city but does not feed upon the masses...instead, the masses turn to Galactus as a new deity, and a new world religion springs around his colossal majesty. Only The Surfer, hiding in hobo rags, knows that Galactus's presence means only death, not salvation. Using the media, he must reveal this anti-God to the world but will the people of Earth simply listen or just offer more threats of violence. It's a ridiculous plot but incredibly enjoyable in that Stan Lee Excelsior kinda way. And I absolutely love Moebius' rendering of the Marvel Universe. It's a trip.

X-O Manowar #1:  Valiant Comics Is Back!  And I'm loving the weird 90s nostalgia that washes over my mind as I turn the pages of this delightful reboot.  It's too early to tell if this comic is going to be any good or not, but there's no denying the beauty of Cary Nord's art and I still dig the premise of 5th Century Visigoth Aric stealing the Manowar suit from spidery faced aliens who worship the armor as a holy relic.  Imagine Excalibur crossed with Iron Man and you've got no idea what this comic is really like.  Hopefully, the modern era of comic storytelling will elevate this series to neo classic heights...but that seems like fanboy dreaming to me.  Fingers crossed.

BPRD - The Devil's Engine #1:  Well, not much to the first issue.  Agent Devon & psychic Fenix are traveling via Train from Texas to the BPRD compound, but it's not going to be a simple ride with a countryside now overrun by all manner of monstrosities.  I'm still not won over to the Fenix character or Agent Devon for that matter, they've done a good job of making him an unlikable twit.  But the other half of this book deals with the Zinco corporation and the resurrection of "The Master."  That's where my interest is piqued.  Supernatural Nazis are surfacing...

Winter Soldier #5:  The first arc of Brubaker's series has come to a close.  It was decent.  Just a glimmer of his amazing Bucky Barnes run in Captain America.  Machine Gun Apes?  Good.  Dr. Doom 3rd Person speechifying?  Sigh.  But the sleeper assassin story could lead to some interesting places and I'll stick around for a little while.  But I miss the love I once felt for this character.

The Shadow #2:  This was probably the last issue of the Garth Ennis series that I'm gonna buy.  It's not bad by any means, but it's not grabbing me either.  Frankly, I just want The Shadow to Shadow it up.  The Lamont Cranston stuff is not engaging me.  It might just read better in trade.  That's where I'll check it out again if I bother at all.

ROAD TRIP OF THE WEEK!

Brian Regan at The Warner Theater:  On Saturday Night, The Wife took me out to see one of her favorite comedians.  She's a stand-up comedy junkie and even though I've enjoyed certain comics in my time, it's a realm I need to be steered in to properly enjoy.  Thankfully I've got her.  Regan offered some serious chuckles with his flailing spider web comedy and plaid shirt shenanigans, but his nice guy humor doesn't grab me in any particular way.  Just a few days have passed and I'm having difficulty recalling his bit.  Still, it was a good time and it's always fun to venture into DC for a show.

--Brad