Movie Review: Man of Steel

If you read this blog, it is no secret that Super-man is my favorite D/C comics character,  so the anticipation and the expectations are raised pretty high, though after the Rotten Tomatoes reviews started coming in and the social media reaction was not negative but just not knowing how to take the film, I tried to lessen my expectations. Now after seeing it myself I can understand the odd reactions as it was not what people expected and I am still a little unsure how I feel about it.

It was entertaining and did not suck. Part of this was due to the fact it was incredibly well made. Some of the mega-galatic qualities made elements of the Avengers look like cheap video game cgi.  So from a production and cinematic level it was a better movie than Avengers as it had more of a Ridley Scott feel than the more comic like elements Snyder normally employs.

From the get go liberties began to be taken with the mythos. Krypton resembled something that was a cross between "City of Lost Children" and "Dune". Truth be told I am so tired of this origin story being told I guess the visual element was needed to keep from losing me. The last adventures of Jor-el, while fun to watch could have been trimmed to have put more screen time with Clark in the suit before he turned him self over to the military. Zod shows up and outs Clark via a broadcast threat, so the fact the military decided to just take Zod's word or everything seemed a little off to me.

The Fortress of Solitude being a space ship instead of an ice castle , made sense i selling it with as much realism they attempted with this and I think overall the film succeeded in what it intended to do in making Super-man more feasible to modern audiences when he was so grounded in World War 2 values. The Smallville elements were handled better than previous films , I feel even more than the Donner films. Reeves had more charisma on screen and made you feel like Super-man was your friend, this movie he was much more clearly alien and there was an sense of isolation and being on the outside looking in that almost took from the Bill Bixby Hulk television show.

As with Smallville or any of the movies there is this sense of joy that wells up inside of me when ever I see him first appear in the suit. Its such an iconic image that somehow manages to almost hold more weight for me than when I see Banner transform on screen. I think this is because the Hulk is more about release where Super-man is the actualization of our higher selves. It was in these moments the movie excelled, but when it threw a lot of hard sci-fi at you in the big battle scene in the movies second half that it lost something for me.

After Clark saves Lois when she is crashing to Earth and becomes embroiled in stopping all these various terra forming plots and devices Zod has set in place it gets scattered and then turns into a disaster film combined with the third  Matrix film. Snyder dialed back his trademark slow-mo fight scenes but went just as over  the top but in a much more Micheal Bay manner and lost me because then I couldn't see the character. The character came back in the final fight scene with Zod. I find it hard to believe Super-man would have allowed for that much destruction of Metropolis to take place, but this is a different Super-man who will kill, when he has to.

Overall I will have to see the middle section again to make a final judgement, it quality film making but feels weird seeing this as the portrayal of his world be it on Earth or on Krypton, it was gritty and often serious , though I don't think that was necessarily problematic, it was an intangible element in the tone, but maybe I just need to see it again to get use to the stylistic difference. It was one of the more well made Super-hero films to date and raises the bar on Marvel when they think about the quality in which they wish to bring the cosmic elements to life.    

Faster Than the Speed of Sense

Comics continue to not really inspire and the plague of alternate universes / time travel to weasel their way around continuity and make readers really give a shit less , is most pronounced in Age of Ultron but books like the Indestructible Hulk where the team up with the Walt Simonson Thor occurs and while mildly entertaining at least more so than other books I read this week I don't feel like for all the talent working on it it really lived up to it's potential , the Avengers books continue to be mired down in cosmic goobly gook , this includes new Avengers, I'm not sure if I forgot to read Dark Avengers or it it really left that little of an impression on me.

While we are on the subject of poor first impression , X-men one did little to dispel the notion that an all female team can't carry a book. It was less than memorable with Rogue the only character worth caring about and Jubilee who didn't appear to be a vampire with a baby. While the art in Savage Wolverine was pretty good and had a guest spot with a Hulk from where and why is he mindless? the story was weak.

What's there to look forward to ... mmm the Daredevil arc of the Hulk can go either way , I think Superior Spider-man has more promise than any of the X or Avengers book though Uncanny could get back on track making Fantastic Four pretty much a lost cause.


 
in other news

It's no secret now that Quicksliver and his sister the Scarlet Witch will be in the sequel to the Avengers, though now Fox and Disney/Marvel get to slug it out over the fine print concerning Marvel's speedster who has already been cast for the X-men film, as Evan Peters from American Horror Story fame playing the role. In the X-men film the Avengers can't be referenced and the Fact Magneto is their father can't be referenced in Avengers nor can the word mutant, so genetic freak is o.k? I'm sure Joss can work around it if it's justa matter of verbiage and hopefully this will mean skipping over origins all together.  Scarlet Witch runs neck and neck with Tigra  for being may favorite female Marvel character, I like Wasp, Carol Danvers and She-Hulk as well but I know at least Jennifer Walters will never see the light of an Avengers Movie.

Other news to be raising their prices over the years Dragon-con is certainly lacking any interesting guests so far the only ones I give a shit about are

James Marsters

Traci Lords

 Doug Jones

Laurell K Hamilton

Jim Butcher

Richard Lee Byers

 and then geeks in general might care about but I don't really give a shit about
 

Billy Dee Williams

George Takei

William Shatner

Post- Age of Ultron

You know we are dealing with the same mess we had a few weeks ago, there isn't really anybook I'm finding that entertaing though the Avenger's Enemy Within book was the best of the bunch, Iron-Man being a cosmic character seems like they are reaching, Thor has great art but is an obtuse read that suffers from the time travel plague sweeping across the company as a whole. Can you think of any book where it's not mucked up with time travel, body swtiching or alternate reality? Daredevil is the only one that pops into my head, though the rather underwhelming Thunderbolts counts. The Hulk will end up in some sort of return to the savage land with the Raw Hide Kid showing up and riding dinosaurs so that sounds like another time slip of a mess.

Defenders now has a Wonder=woman knock off, why not make Valkyrie your Wonder-woman kncok off? Then bringing in Neil Gaiman's Angela character to end the Age of Ultron, is Joss Whedon in charge how did we end up with so manny warrior women, not that I havea problem with them, some of my favorite marvel characters are women,...She-hulk, Tigra, Wasp and Scarlet Witch. Why not further develop those?

So we can agree Age of Ultron is a flop, it should have taken place in the Ultimate Universe, so looking ahead we have this Infinity which will be rehash of the Infinity Gauntlet story, bringing Thanos in and ramping up Guardians of the Galaxy for the big screen, we know Captain America,Thor and Spider-man have movies coming out so expect them to be spotlighted.So Captain America should have his other worldly adventures wrapped up by septemeber, according to sollicts the God-slayer thing gets drug out in Thor til August, and Expect Peter Parker to be back by the time the sequel hits. So with Movies and now ..television entertwined with who gets a push, expect more from SHEILD, the rumors of Luke Cage debunked so J August's character will get a push who ever it might be. Then on Marvel's slate it's Ant-man, Dr.Strange and Black Panther, so by the fall the seeds will start being sewn to increase awareness of those characters. Falcon should get more face time since he is in Cap 2, he is already being shocased on the Avengers Assembled Cartoon, Winter Soldier...well he has had his own book and since he is the villain in this then, I don't know. He seems a weird choice for a villian to me.

Speaking of Villians , the other heroes aside from Dr.Strange have a fairly weak rogues gallery and Black Panther barely has one at all, I mean Klaw? Man-Ape, though I suppose they could take him to the Savage Land or something. Ant-man has ...Ultron, then Egg Head and I suppose any of the masters of evilm I think he would be a good gateway to bring in Vision and Wonder-man. Joss confirmed this week that yes, Scarlet With and Quicksliver will be in the Avengers sequel, I thin this will help phase Rober Downey jr out. I'm fine with an Iron-man less team. They will more than liely follow the books and have the team drop down to Cap, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksliver and bring in Black Panter though Captain Marvel is suppose to show up.

Marvel studios has an aversion to characters keeping their mask on so hows that going to work with Black Panther? Will Dr.Strange be in Blu pajamss? At 45 MArk Ruffalo knows the clock is ticking on him as Banner in a stand alone and just think how bad an Iron-man four without Downey will flop as they are saying the character is enough like James Bond that anyone can play him. How long with the Comic book movie trend last? Regardless Marvel needs to step up to the plate and start writing books that have me looking forward to my weekly comic book store run rather than just me making it out of obligation, because once we reach that level of apathy do you think we will pay for movies?

Iron -Man 3

O.k here we go on very little sleep after seeing a late night showing.

Mostly entertaining, I think Iron Man 3 succeeds if not in being a good movie then at at least better than the previous film in this trilogy. It has a strong start and acknowledges the Avengers as being a traumatic even for the character , part of this being the fact he has to acknowledge that gods and aliens exist in the world and his power is he's a guy who build things. There is a wink to A.I.M but no guys in yellow beep keeper suits, hazmat suits would have worked as well. It was somewhere in the first big action scene that things went left of center for me. In a much similar way to how they did in Thor, because for almost of the movie we have a powerless Tony Stark, due to armor malfunctions. So this way I suppose we have an Iron-man movie with him not in the suit the bulk of the movie ,trying to make it more like a James bond film and the giving you a big superhero ending like something out of the transformers as Stark jumps from one armor to the next.

I can appreciate the message being conveyed by the depiction of the Mandarin, as just an actor playing role as I have always said you can throw any Arab in front of a camera and tell the world its Osma Bin Laden and how are we to say different, if all the back story we have on him is what CNN tells us. But at the end of the day the Mandarin who is a pivotal character in the Marvel Universe when it comes to Stark's world...just doesn't exist. No power rings , nothing. So if you going into this expecting it to be faithful to the comics in any way then expect to be let down. The fact the movie has some heart and Downey's portrayal of Stark continues to carry the film don't make it a waste of money but after the few two film captured a balance of reverence and being broad enough for the general movie going public then, this is a jarring turn.

The only accurate information the creators gave us going into this is its not as dark as the trailers would lead you to believe. They keep a low level of humor buzzing through out. As far as Easter eggs, they have jumped the rabbit on this. Don't expect to see S.H.E.I.L.D or any Avengers, unless the trailer for Thor 2 counts and the post-credit scene , which does not have anything to do with Guardians of the Galaxy.
The best easter egg to me was the Hulk-Buster armor and the ten seconds it spent on screen.They are really going to have a lot of action figures to sell.

The fact Norman Osborn wasn't in the Iron Patriot costume was fine as he is in the rights to Spider-man deal, and the Iron Patriot was pretty much a running joke. There was no Rescue even though Potts does have on a suit for a second. The president has an Iron Patriot suit on for a minute but that doesn't make him the Iron Patriot.

The whole plane scene felt a little forced to me but with the exception of when things got very transformers for the big battle scene which by no means out did the Avengers the action was better than the sort of thing I saw in the Fast and Furious six trailer. The bad guy an odd choice but worked. The end either is going to start the tone to write Iron-man out of the Avengers to make room for the new characters or is going to make it harder for them to get the band back together sort of thing because this movie doesn't lead you to believe they became functioning team. The tug of war between being a good movie and a good comic book movie...super-hero movie, rage through out as they are somewhat apologetic where the previous films didn't so the change of direction did bring its changes in the tone.

The Curious Case of Comics This Week

How often does a D/c title make the cover picture to a blog...not often. D/C continues to show improvement this week. I like Catwoman , I'm not sure why I take pauses from reading it, it's one of the fee powerless superhero books I like. She does pretty well with out powers and is in and put of Arkham all in one issue. There's a lot of fun stuff in this pretty ,inch everything I need from tho shook is delivered with great art. Art is where D/c is putting a hurting on marvel, there stories are a jumbled mess most of the time even a bit on this weeks Justice League it still great to look at.

O.k Marvel...the mess is made tampering with what works, this can be dome with taste and class, the Superior Spoder -man for one has surprised me, this episode the action was a little sparse and the lack of Tony Stark helped keep the beat going amd with Dr. Ock's plan to further remove the Peter Parker parts ...well we'll see.

But future/ past , time Travelling and alternate worlds thing is the editors letting sloppy writing run rampant, it's company wide mess now, Dark Avengersalmost unreadable I gave it a chance to see Skaar. It couldn't find a fuck to give. The big glaring one is Age of Ultron , first off we are ever told when these events take place and now the teams have split some people like Wolverine are going into the past others like Fury in the future, thoughgSueStorm commented that she never remembered seeing Fury look that young. so where is he from? I can't be shocked by She-hulk getting killed or Wolverine killing Hank Pym because I don't know what context to take it in. I don know with Ant-man being green lit if Phm is in fact dead it won't be for long.

Thunderbolts was a little better, at least it could be followed though the whole terrorist arc is underwhelming. Iron-man the god killer thing is big and dumb. Nova was fun, the art was great, it think this greatest American hero stick it's in now. Reds to move forward some,Rocket Racoon and Gamora's appearence didn't make me any more than neutral at best to the characters. Howardthe duck is more intresting than rocket Racoon. I think Gamora and drax and the only ones worth keeping on that team and if I was writing it would add, Nova, Adam Warlock, and mmm...Beta Ray Bill or even Sif to the team, but Mantis or Moondragonwould work as well.

The Savage Wolverine was pretty good, didn't recognize Amadeus Cho how did he grow up so fast ough every Boyd aged slower in comics Now what version of the Hulk is that which showed up at the end is another good question to ask. Didn't both wo Amy other X titles. I did giv e Captain Marvel a shot and it was. Jch improved,though the art work was still lacki thou I'll give it another shot since I like Carol Danvers.

the Middle of the Road in Comics

This week was a mixed bag as comics tried to walk the middle road between convoluted modern take on the stories and classi action that has been their bread and butter all these years. Are audiences more complex as the average comic reader is an older demographic that it once was? I'm pretty well read but I'm not expecting Ayn Rand when I read the Avengers or even Anne Rice , I want big battles. This most recent arc in the Avengers attempts to give us that as they introduce this kid who must be like the Beyonder or the Hood when he got the infinity gems, let's see über powerful character with no known limits to his power, sounds like he belongs in D/C or if you want that bring the Sentry back...as a kid even if you have to . If I was writing for Avengers that's what I would do bring the Sentry back you can even have the Gaurdians of the Galaxy find him in a cosmic egg if you want the space opera in their , down grade his power set a little or make him more flawed .

Uncanny Avengers is the better Avenger's book, I mean Secret Avengers is pretty much knocked out the running with the Drone Iron Patriot thing. This week we had history rewritten with the remember that time Thor just had an axe and fought Apocalypse...well thankfully even with the axe Thor comes back and puts a hurting on him. Just ink if he had the hammer it would have been no contest, but they made have a handicap here. So that said axe falls into the hands of Kang who has the whole time travel thing to iron over if he has had Thors axe this whole time why haven't we seen it before.

Thor isn't doing so great in his own book where does the god slayer and and the god bomb begin the question they are asking here. We have the Thor of Christmas future jumbled in the mix here.the story has some of the best art in the biz but the story is a mess.

Uncanny X-men , well the past version of Angel joins the Present day Cyclops' team , not much else happens and this time travel thing is going to com back and bite them on the ass. Wolverine solo book the book and his fucking mean gun ...meh.

Age of Ultron goes to the Savage Land, Red hulk smashing Ultron robots, Nick Fury has been hiding out in the secret avengers gift shop the big Summer event is the songs remains the lame. Speaking of lame the whole Battle Royale version of Avengers Accademy spent the the whole issue dedicated to Arcade's power up grade which could have been time well spent in two pages now an entire issue.

So looking ahead its going to depend on how well books like Hulk, Superior Spider-man , Uncanny Avngers and all new X-men can maintain their game leading the pack.

D.C looks like it might be more intresting with all the Leagues fighting each other, now all the Avengers teams could do something similar but then it would be pretty much like civil war.

A little brighter

Having to hop on and start writing the next day read comics since they have been less than memorable these days, though this week there has been a marked improvement.

Indestructable Hulk...Well if it had any less smashing then I wouldn't like it the fight with Attuma is a little short , obviously the Hulk could take him no surprise then next . the Walt Siminson Thor guest appearence which looks fun thou a little baffling in the continuity department. With that said the Hulk returns to be one of the worthy just in a different context and the book that was the most fun to read. Issue six was a vast improvement and the long overdue return to the Hulk being the best read on the shelves rather than an obligation as he is my favorite character. Legs see how long they can keep this up

The avengers shows improvement though two,elf the new characters I think are wall hangings Thor, Hulk, Ms Marvel are the only ones who really did much. Granted it was out of Captain Americas league. Hyperion didn't add anything the return of the Eden thing is a plot thread I had though they had wrapped already so hate to see it get mired back down into that

Superior Spider-man is beginning to work for me know the avengers have caught on , they need to get dr strange on it. Any way I hope they take a turn to make spiderman a heel so when Parker gets back he is still though of as a bad guy and finally has had it and cracks turning into o,etching more like Moon Knight...that's where I would go with it it would take Peter into a darker place, I think something like that would help Super-man out as well , but the action comis I read was just a crazy mess. This weeks issue was a little week the Avenger show down stated but the throw down not until next week.

Dark Avengers in the alternate reality it's really hard to care Skaar or no Skaar and can we get rid of that Ragnarok robot already Oreo something to change him so it goes beyond just being a Thor clone, not that I don't know that's what it is it's just like having two of the same actions figures so you Coe up wit something childish like that so you can play wit both.

All New X-men hmmm the art was pret decent, I'm am still interested in seeing where it goes even if this issue didn't really go beyond the danger room and this weeks issue was a recruitment drive on the present day Cyclops part.

The Jusitce Society was e best dc book I have read in a while I ink they are really making the most of this and I want to continue readi. I think the character dynamic works and it feels more like an avengers book that's the avengers which I guess is one of things I like about it, JLA was an improvement but got overblown. Action Comica showed the most improvement with awesome art and a story that looks almost worth following.

I did read other stuff it filed to make enoughof an impression, skipped capt america i have gotten bored with that story. Not none of these books were in any way conned to be of Ultron so the steps we have taken forward might be lost whenwe get into the thick of that. Gaurdians of the Galaxy had good art but was a little lost in its own mythos to connect with me.

Age of Ultron get marginally better with Vision's appearence then they killed off She-hulk or so it Seems took a blast that went in one ear and out the other, guess we will see how her healing factor holds up.