Marvel Comics in 2020

 This was supposed to be a mid year look at Marvel that I stalled out on. Perhaps a metaphor regarding how exciting they may or may not have been thus far. Before I started this piece it's been some time since I wrote about acutal comic books. It used to be a weekly thing, It is not that I stopped reading them. I have not. Buying them yes, in protest of certain choices they made over the year. Rather than whine in the comments section I made different choice. Even with that My enthusiasm for them grew weary after having their agendas shoved down my throats with sub-par story lines. There have been a few exceptions . The Immortal Hulk and Dr. Strange have both been on point. Savage Avengers which brought Conan into earth 616 has a pretty decent run. The Amazing Spider man also had some high points. Other books have been less focused. I am going to catch us up on where Marvel is at this year.,

After stopping the presses for Covid, they cranked in the Empyre event, which so far is underwhelming. The Savage Avengers cross over was an unneeded team up with Conan and Venom. If you are not aware what the premise is of this event a twist to the Kree /Skrull war is the quick nickel version. X-men issue 10 crosses over into this and it is another wasted excursion with the focus not on the X-men, but Vulcan from the Imperial Guard. The Empyre book itself is a space opera, more focused on convoluted drama, The X-Factor book is solid. It has great art and 3 characters I give a shit about North Star, Aurora and Daken. Did I mention I am a fan of Alpha Flight? Why not bring them back? They have been poorly used as a back up crew for Captain Marvel in space. We have seen Sasquatch and Puck in the pages of Hulk lately. All we need is Shaman, who has turned up in Strange Accademy and a new Vindicator.

I like that it pulls deeply from the well of Marvel mythology and gives cosmic c-listers more of a shot. I am a fan of Super Skrull and he factors in. They took a dramatic turn with She-hulk trying to put her on Bruce's level, which considering the beat down the Avengers got in the pages of Immortal Hulk it's clear they are not on his level. But then they killed her off in Empyre. The second event she has been killed in. The writer of Empyre also thinks that plant vines would not be able to hold Thor.

This even is meant to have Captain Marvel in mind as she has now joined Ronan in the ranks of the accusers. She has to go condemn some one who turns out to be her half sister, this goes against the code so now she is on the run. This was a crossover with the Empyre books so we will see if it indeed has an impact. The book gains it's legs , but the problem being it focuses on all the side characters . I was talking to someone about why Captain Marvel was a terrivle movie and as evident here with out War Machine, Hazmat and Spider Woman, she can not hold a story on her own. Spider Woman can , why does she not have a movie? Thor on the other had has improved without Matt Fraction on the book, though it did get a little hung up on the Galactus angle and the new Black Winter story line might be iffy. The Captain America Empyre book is ok. I like how Cap is drawn.

Speaking of messes. Tony Stark is still dead and Iron Man is now an AI in an artifical body. Yet he still gets angry and feels emotions. I did like that the book gave greater focus to characters like Jocosta and Machine Man. Arno Stark is running around in the 2020 armor. He is contending only with a robot rebellion lead by Mark One a Stark clone. The thing is continuity breaks down when you consider Stark is not having this much of a indentity crisis when he appears in the pages of the Avengers. It is hard to tell and the end of the arc if they brought Stark truly back to life as when he talks to Rhodes it made it seem like it was their last come back to life free card being used in that issue.

The Amazing Spider Man has gotten almost as dark as a Bat-man comic book with this new Sin-Eater arc. There isa creepy crawly bad guy lurking in the shadows of Peter Parkers nightmares. It is odd for a Spider Man book to not be light hearted , but it makes sense this is the direction it would go. Daredevil has really been solid , you can see how the Netflix show has influenced it . I am looking forward to seeing Spider Man beat the crap out of all the other spider people who are teaming up to stop him from saving Norman Osborn.I do not think I have seen him fight Spider- Gwen or Silk yet. I think on his a-game he is the more experienced fighter and can beat them all at once. Jessica Drew being the only one who should give him much trouble.

As far as X books go the new X-factor book is pretty soilid. Northstar, Daken and Polaris make for a decent team. Rachel summers is also in the mix. It's a murder mystery to find out what happened to Aurora. The X-men did not really fit well into Empyre. The whole X nation verse Shadow organizations of the week, is hit or miss. It has not sucked , but I have not been blown away by it either.

Film Review : " New Mutants"

Yes , I am going to get back to reviewing comics, in fact I am going to catch up with 2020 soon. For now lets look at the long Delayed New Mutants movie. It has been called by some critics the worst of the X-men movies. This is not true. It is better than the past two for sure. Perhaps not to the level of "Days of Future Past".  Effects wise it holds up against the original singer trilogy, but not on par with First Class. The character deviate from the comics at times and this is the sticking point for me in place. I think Magick is the best of the bunch in terms of acting and portrayal.  Wolfsband is decent as well. I was never into Dani Moostar so the bar is low for her. Cannonball and Sunspot are more problematic. Sam is depicted as being always banged up from using his powers. Um, he has a forcefeild around himself when he flies.  Sunspot was strong, but looked to much like the Human Torch. Is dark energy too much to ask for ? It would have looked more unique visually. Just stick to how he is drawn .

One thing about this movie that was a nice break, is all too often Marvel movies make the villian a mirror version of the heroes powers. There was not even a clear cut villian in this. Demon Bear? He looked cool. They nailed that. But he was more like Dani's past haunting her. I think the theme was really they were their own worst enemies. In the horror theme , well it was not a horror movie, but had those vibes, think "Flowers in the Attic" meets "Insidious". But was not a scary movie. It was darker than the other Xmen movies so I liked that. Was it worth the wait? mmm Kinda. I hope they keep her as Magick in future Marvel movies. The actor who plays Sam also has potential and if you are going to use Dani, then keep that chick as well she looks like she might be hot as she gets older, she is half way there already.

I enjoyed the movie. Yes it fell into the same trap most do where they throw every thing into a big cgi battle at the end  I mean a climax is one thing, but it could be done better . Not just the lets throw all the action figures on the bed feel. If you like the 80s run of the comics then you will like this. It is a shame there was no Warlock. But one thing I have learned from this movies is you can not have it all, and you can not have it all done right.