Marvel 2017 Update

This has been floating around for a while so forcing myself to finish it. The comics have been so uninspiring it is hard to get inspired enough to write about them. So Kevin Feige announced that the Marvel movies are done at 22. So Dr. Strange will get a sequel , but not a 3rd movie? Or the tie-ins will stop and everyone has to stand on their own two feet. If the Spider-man sequel does well I have a  hard time imagining that they wont make a third. In cases it would be clearly going to the well too many times. Is the focus going to shift on tv? With In-humans proved to be a bust. This is too becomes a gamble. The actors are dropping from the contracts so re-booting is imminent. Though they have learned their lesson from the comics and Legacy finds them returning to the status quo. Jane Foster will die. Iron-heart could never get off the ground. I was going to write separate reviews for The Punisher and Runaways shows , but I can sum them up in a few sentences. The Punisher, had it's moments and ended strong. Too many extra story lines, and Jigsaw should have been a thing and not just an old Army buddy. More ties into organized crime would have been nice. My major complaint is no costume, having a costume is an establishing an identity which is like the crest of his shield that symbolizes what he is fighting for. Without this he is not a super-hero or anything but another character in a crime drama. The Runaways gets a good feel of the characters. It wastes too much time with origins and gets mired down into a soap opera with their parents that eclipses the kids. I keep telling myself if this doesn't change I am giving up on the show.

The bottom line is numbers talk and bull-shit walks so the cancellations this year now include The Un-believable Gwen-pool gets cancelled, Luke Cage ( a good character not meant to support a book of his own), Hawkeye, Gen X, and America Chavez. Can Squirrel-girl be far behind one wonders. Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers and X-men Blue are said to be Marvel's biggest selling books. As of Amazing Spider-Man 793, it's been reduced to haphazard mess,  this time is one with Venom symbiotes taking over people and the new Flash Thompson Anti-Venom is the only hope, as Spider-Man himself is possessed by a symbiote. Black Cat who is taking a much larger role as a villain seems to be stepping up to orchestrate this. X-men has some focus and now they have become a cluster fuck of mindless stories that feel like the kind of plot chaos that goes on in your average issue of Justice League. Avengers is not much better they are going into "No Surrender" so far it seems murky something with Kang, or High Evolutionary and building into another Infinity War in time for Infinity War to go to the big screen.


Planet Hulk is Greg Pak trying to recreate what they had with Banner using Cho-Hulk and it falls flat, though the last page of issue 711 shows Cho and Thor about to go at it. This trend continues as the go into a "World War Hulk" coming out of Planet Hulk, as this point Banner Hulk will be back so Cho-Hulk will be a mute point. Maybe he will get killed off, we can only hope, but not likely since Pak is writing it. The comics trying to cash in one the movies. Speaking of movies cashing in Black Panther continues to prove that Black Panther is a great supporting character who works in the context of the Avengers or Fantastic Four, but can't support his own book. They throw in other black characters from the Marvel Universe to try to offer support in the comic and it seems forced. The movie looks like a video and while it will be rallied behind since it is the politically correct thing to do, the story will suck, because there are no memorable Black Panther solo adventures to pull from, unless you are talking about his feud with Dr. Doom, which isn't happening in this movie.  Iron Man is taking to long to bring Tony back and in the process things could not be more convoluted than they already are.


The best news of the year is Dr. Strange bringing back THE SENTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Loki is stealing Strange's thunder and we know Sentry has ripped one god in half, and Are's is tougher than Loki. When he actually gets into action by making a triumphant return to Asgard. Moon Knight is showing some promise. The art looks like it is drawn by the same due who does Crossed, which is a good thing.

Film Review : "The Last Jedi"

Watched this a week ago , but hadn't felt inspired to write about it. Most of the die-hards have seen it by now. What's left are the people with a passing interest who might see it over the course of their vacation as it winds down around new years, god knows kids don't go back until the 5th. I am not a Star Wars fanatic. I respect the first three films , enjoy the mythology they created, and I like Rogue One for re-capturing that. So I am not clouded by that and can watch these movies with a neutral view.You have probably read a bunch of fan-boy gushing over it and might be a little confused. It really depends on if you are old enough to have see any of the first three in theaters when they came out. If you are then you are clearly not the audience they have in mind, It is written for Millennials and stick a lot of the issues they Tweet about in your face. Their is even a politically correct character, who almost gets killed, not a spoiler since every one almost gets killed. It's the tone of the movie that is the main problem. This is not a get off my lawn moment. I won't hold it up against the first three movies. I'll just hold it up against "Rogue One".

Rogue One took itself seriously. This movie did not. You will then bring up the first three movies when you rush to defend this one by saying"There was humor in the first three movies". True, but it was delivered by Harrison Ford in such a dead pan straight faced manner than it did not take away from the dynamic dramatic gravitas of those movies.Those movies were in many ways a homage to the classic sci-fi serials, so they had class to them. Rogue One followed this blueprint. The problem could be Disney as it felt like I could have been watching Mulan the way they used the force to force the humor in. It was entertaining until these cringe worthy moments pulled me out of the movie.

There is no menace. With Darth Vader dead there has been a void left in these films. Kylo Ren doesn't fill that void and still is in league with Anakin from the Jar Jar era. He still throws temper tantrums. He can still be rather tedious. I still seem him as a petulant child and lets face it Darth Vader did more bad ass shit in the few minutes he was in "Rogue One' than Kylo Ren has done in two fucking movies, so there is no defense for that. You want a villain to be bad ass you write him that way, Hollywood as more than enough examples of this happening in one movie so don't say shit about character development that is bullshit weak writing end of story. While we are on bad writing , how did we get get to Hoth? Granted by that point in the movie is was getting harder for it to keep my attention, but I should have picked up on that. Another is issue is unless it was Luke and Chewie interacting or Leia and C3p0 then the chemistry between characters was just not there. Is it a terrible movie because of these things, no it's more watchable than the Jar Jar era films, I do think without Lucas having a hand in these films they are off the beam. Glad I saw it on-line and did not pay 15 dollars to see it as it worth watching just not worth Mega-plex pricing.