Family Man (2014) Written and Illustrated by Pillwon Jung Published by LINE Webtoons Completed We don’t often hear stories about fathers. They are a bit of an enigma in many respects. A character in our lives that is difficult to describe due to the very nature of fatherhood in our society. Family Man seeks …
Not only does Steve Orlando’s Midnighter comic star a gay man, it tells blunt, sex-positive stories about that character. The main cast of characters in the upcoming main Avengers comic All-New, All-Different Avengers has a small minority of white dudes.
While there is still a lot of work on the road to a utopia of complete social justice, there is a trend of progressivism in some of today’s superhero comics that is impossible to ignore.
Set to release on Sept. 2 from Image Comics is Jeff Lemire and Emi Lenox’s Plutona, a miniseries about a rag-tag group of five kids who bump into the dead body of a famous superhero.
“The book isn’t so much about the superhero as it is the kids who find her. It’s about how this discovery, and the decision they make, starts to affect their lives and their friendship,” said writer Lemire via email interview. “It’s a very grounded story told from these kids’ point of view.”
On the surface, the title of Final Crisis feels like a misnomer. How can there even be a “final” crisis? There will always be a DC Universe, there will always be earth-shattering dangers, and there will always be heroes to ensure the end is never really the end. But the strength of Final Crisis lies in that it recognizes this, and uses this fact as the crux of the entire event: the promotional tagline was, after all, “Heroes die. Legends live forever.” The characters and stories of the DC Universe are timeless, never-ending, and very much alive in the way that language can be said to be alive. It’s from this angle that writer Grant Morrison attempts to comment on and interact with DC’s complex and often unwieldy history. While Final Crisis is not the final challenge these characters will ever face (because nothing ever will be until the day DC stops publishing — and at this point that’ll likely be the same day CNN puts it “Nearer, My God, to Thee” video to use), one walks away from it feeling like they’ve just experienced the ultimate in everything the DC Universe was, is, and will be.
Even though historically speaking, Zorro and Django were contemporaries, they couldn’t be more different. First, there is their ages. Zorro is 95 years old whereas Django hasn’t even celebrated his second birthday as a fictional character. They come in different social classes and cultures (Mexican aristocrat and former African American slave) and are children of different genres with Zorro taking his cues from the pulp and superhero genres while Django is a product of blaxploitation and the Western.
Since the premier of its first series in 1971, Japan’s Kamen Rider superhero franchise has spanned more weekly television series, films, comics, videogames and other assorted media than one would think possible for a franchise the core concept of which is “Man in vaguely insectoid outfit rides motorcycle, fights monsters”. And yet, the franchise’ cast of characters has grown so massive that it’s become en vogue in recent years for massive teamup movies featuring every main character in Kamen Rider history to be produced every year or so. Most recently, these have taken the form of the Taisen series of summer event movies, beginning with 2012’s Kamen Rider X Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen, which saw the Riders battle and then team up with one of their primary rivals for the hearts of children (and the wallets of said children’s parents), the Super Sentai franchise. Super Hero Taisen was followed a year later by Super Hero Taisen Z, which threw the somewhat obscure Space Sheriff Gavan series into the mix, leading many to wonder where the Taisen films could possibly go next.
Of course, Guardians isn’t perfect, as it struggles to find a consistent tone. Sometimes it wants to be more adult, with bawdier language and sexual innuendo. For instance, Quill’s rumination that “If I had a black light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting!” is pretty sophisticated for mainstream PG-13 fare. Other times, it feels as though the filmmakers are pandering to a much younger audience. You can almost visualize a ‘Dancing Groot’ doll gyrating in your kid’s Happy Meal.
For every good sequence, there’s one that’s muddled with bad camerawork and editing. Like a lot of blockbuster action, it’s barely legible; you have to work to keep up with it, and that work interferes with the enjoyment. The story also sags in the middle, as it seems to exist mainly to fill out the run-time. The protagonists take the MacGuffin to a dude they wish to sell it to, but the only real function of the section is to exposit what it is. It turns a big chunk of the plot into a shrug.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a movie being just OK. Given the sordid and often embarrassing history of comic book movies, being just OK could be seen as a victory. Of course, given that Thor: The Dark World is a Marvel Studios movie, and is therefore held to a higher standard of quality by fans of the genre, the fact that it is just OK could be seen as a step down, even a disappointment. Either way, The Dark World is a perfectly entertaining bit of sci-fi/fantasy/adventure fare, but it is also the most forgettable Marvel Studios movie to date.
Kick-Ass, based on Mark Millar’s hilarious-but-brutal comic book, turns the superhero genre on its head. Nobody in Kick-Ass is technically a ‘super’ hero because it’s set in our world. Therefore the ‘super’ heroes are nothing more than costumed vigilantes who withstand a bullet as well as a bowl of fruit. It’s great to see …
The Bounce # 1 Story by Joe Casey Art by Dave Messina, and Colours by Giovanna Niro Distributed by Image Comics Sometimes in superhero comics, it’s difficult to believe there could be anything new under the sun. Every power and every tragic back story have been done. With The Bounce #1, writer Joe Casey finds …
Thor Directed by Kenneth Branagh Written by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz and John Payne 2011, USA In a strange twist of fate, Branagh brings a Shakespearean edge to Thor, perhaps the silliest and consequently, the most difficult of all the Avengers superheroes to bring to the screen. Though he does not entirely overcome the silliness …
Being a critically acclaimed indie director to jumping onto the big budget stage is quite a leap for Darren Aronofsky. If what Deadline is claiming to be accurate, Mr. Aronofsky is pretty close to signing the deal to become the next Wolverine director. After being named on the shortlist for Superman, ultimately given to Zack …
Stories have been thrown back and forth whether or not Kick-Ass director, Matthew Vaughn, would be helming the prequel/reboot of the X-Men franchise new film, X-Men: First Class, based off the comic book written by Jeff Parker. Many names were dropped (Louis Leterrier, Jonathan Mostow, Daniel Espinosa, Rupert Sanders, Timur Bekmambetov, David Slade, and Carl …
A first official look of Chris Hemsworth suited up in the Thor armor has surfaced thanks to Yahoo! Movies. Looks like they are keeping true to the comic book design while still grounding it to the real world and not so animated. This is surprisingly the first picture we’ve seen from the shooting of Thor …