Conan the Barbarian

The bar is set pretty high on this one. You have what i consider the epitome of fantasy characters this side of Bilbo Baggins, so a failure to fully grasp the concept of Conan when he is the paradigm epic fantasy warrior the we have a problem. After we get past the pitiful baby Conan puppet, the movies two best performances come from Ron Perlman and the kid who plays little Conan, as bad ass who shows up at field day with the heads of five warriors in tow in what is the best combat sequence of the movie, then we go to adult Conan, a smiling charmer not the grim warrior who has endured the worst the world has to offer.
This movie is a remake in title only and i am fine with that . Conan's best depictions are in his creator Robert E Howard's depictions of him and i would follow that with the Savage Sword of Conan books from the 80's and Robert Jordans' take on the character. If you haven't guessed along side the incredible Hulk and Frankenstein's monster Conan is my favorite literary character. So i went in set up for disappointment. Jason Momoa 's casting in the lead role , drew my ire because he looked almost to black in some of the pictures i had seen, the followed by his lack of size . Then came game of thrones and his role of Khal Drogo, which revitalized my hope for this movie. where he went wrong was straying from Drogo's demeanor, the only time Conan should be smiling is when he is drunk or just finished bedding a princess, as with most humans who learned to become guarded to survive what life has thrown at them these are the only times the wall come down. Arnold's depiction of Conan came off as a witless meat head and his lack of acting chops he came off as emotionally flat , which if given the context of someone who is very guarded would work for me though , make no mistake about it Conan is very street smart.
The Movies only depiction of barbarism was shown in how he treated women, a very small scope , Conan is a thief and a mercenary , while critics decried the fact he was not a clear cut good guy as in the lack of values , i thought he could have stood to be more amoral. He should make the punisher and wolverine look like boy scouts as he kills with no qualms and it is part of his survival instinct.
The other characters were cut and past color by number side kicks and villians, rose mcgowans' performance the most disappointing , like Conan she was much more interesting as a child . But i can say in the scope of the 80's sword and sorcery films.... beast master, death stalker, the sword and the sorcerer, red Sonja ,barbarian queen etc, this movie sits well if not head and shoulders above them. I feel there were alot of missed opportunities , the awesomeness it could have encompassed was pass by, the bright red blood shed lost the edge it had in the first 20 mins, we needed more limbs hacked and heads flying. this was the golden moment for cinematic violence passing us by.
Measuring it up i would say it surpassed the clash of the titans remake and pathfinder, but lacks the bite of Valhalla rising, though the latter went more for realism and conan is a epic fantasy, the grim tone should have been realized, well made in it's construction,on a film making scale would say most comparable to the scorpion king, but there is the problem as it should have been darker and bloodier.

all things Hulk

OK picked up books today and browsed through others, namely the most recent issue of fear it's self with the thing/hulk/Thor throw down, spoilers right here ..... Thor put a hurting on the thing who was i'm guessing i only thumbed through to see the result of the hulk fight ..is purged of the worthy energy when thor throws his hammer through him.
Now the Hulk fight was typical no clear cut winner, however i think Thor still put up a little too much of a fight if this is a amped up banner hulk he is fighting , Thor knocks him in a ulta blast of fire ball lighting that didn't make much sense , some where else which will be either where the vs dracula series picks up or issue 1 of Incredible Hulk starts
Next Hulk 39, which , parker falls back into matt fractionville by giving us too much back story, the omegaex fight is off to a good start , though this black mist person the are trying to create for red hulk's rogues gallery seems very forced, there is not much chemistry between the characters, the book needs better art to live up to parkers potential for greatness on this title
now comes what i thought was going to be the last issue of this silly, trying too hard for epic final pak run, but no we have another coming, magic jumbles things up into almost a dc feel casserole , of fighting with no conclusion or purpose, these last few issues have really in my eyes tainted his legacy with the character who had strong moments with world war hulk and planet hulk. Sure we have dr strange dressed for the ren faire, which i think should be his standard costume, the art is what saves this book.

more smashing

Ok catching up now we have Thor issue 4 and Avengers 15 , it still baffles me how Thor isn't tied into Fear Itself , anyways the art work is stellar in this space battle , while there is much more action than we have seen in some of the dragging issues preceding this , the Thor vs Silver Surfer battle hasn't delivered the goods as it needs to here, i was also wondering where the hell is beta ray bill in all this seems like it would be up his alley, anyway Odin vs Galactus battle was more a mind game with night mare asides , the scene with Thor laying into galactus was pretty cool, from this and what i have seen of the impending Thor showing up to the battle field in fear it's self he is going to get a better display of his powers.
Avengers was like the bizzarro version of the dynamics of the book composition, as the artwork was awful reminding me of the Maxx from the nineties . We get even more of this dull telling not showing avengers interview , placed in at points where it made the story drag , now the fighting was an improvement , spider-woman vs a souped up serpent power Hulk, wasn't realistic, ms marvel represented herself well, this protector guy, whos a Kree, i assumed to be more captain marvell , came across like the video game character mega-man crossed with vision . Hawkeye was well played and seemed to be the only character who bendis nailed in tone . Fear itself , pales in comparison to Siege seems to lack forward momentum which is becoming a trade mark for the hit or miss fraction and bendis team the so called architects whos buildings seem to hold up as well as the ravaged city scape we see here, remember before this event how they said every punch count every loose brick counts ... uh remind me not to believe you as it like every metal band saying its going to be there heaviest album yet before they sell out

Smashing

ok getting a little caught up here , with Hulk 37 & 38 and Incredible Hulk, 633 , The Hulk issues were focused around fear itself and the beat down Ben grimm handed him, shown from M.O.D.O.K's perspective , the inter between him and zero who ever she is shows go interplay and Ross Hulk is more of a back ground , if done any different than how parker handled it might have seemed like filler , but i was entertained as I was Pak's issue , which felt like the what if Hulk had become a barbarian , once again Banner hulk was in the back ground and the supporting cast , Cho, Betty Ross etc. This is a trend i think need s to be broken on the Number one issue of returning it to the incredible hulk post fear itself . Because you are telling me nby writing these other charactr you are switching the point of view from the primary character because you are afraid to get your hands in and really write him, we see this as well in fraction's Thor run, he gets loki more than he gets thor, here clearly pak relates to cho rather than banner who more often than not he is trying to cast in a disparaging light , and the Hulk is overly aloof rather than strong and silent but still imposing and bordering on being a bully because he can .

are you serious

i know i am due to get caught up on my books here and i will this weekend. the big new that is annoying me , is this whole black spider-man thing ,and i'm not talking about the symbiotic suit, if you are into comics and follow them at all online you are going to know what i am talking about .
Who cares ? lets get some things straight here , number this is in the ultimate universe, do you think with a movie coming out next year they are going to screw with their Super-man?? it's the Ultimate universe , i can't tell you the number of the earth it is but i can tell you it's not earth 616 where marvel continuity is based. my thoughts are if it doesn't happen in continuity it didn't happen , they might as well bring back what if ? , because the ultimate universe, is Brian bendis' masturbatory fantasy where he can make things as modern or real or pc as he wants , i mean really world war 2 happened way before the civil rights movement so do you think nick fury would have been a black man in charge of intelligence information on the highest level of government security, so really brian how realistic where you being ?
Secondly it's not like they are screwing with peter parker and making him black . it doesn't matter even in your little other world who is parading around in a suit , if it's not peter parker it's not spider-man, if it's not steve rogers it's not captain america, we already saw that in the real world with bucky , it boils down to gimmicks to sell books because due to a lack of creativity .
JUST LOOK AT HIS AVENGERS RUN , he is falling back on boring tricks the whole interview issues of the character narrating avenger history, yawns . he already screwed up the concept of the avengers as a team , so my other posts for that , he has his moment i will give him that but the ultimates secure his job, as the well runs dry on creative ways to tell the story in the mainstream continuity , dc does this as well , they don't want to take risks ,and anger the fans in this economy , well the pc thing is being to go a little too far .