Category Archives: Avengers
Marvel and Avengers to Rule Our Lives With New Facebook Game
Hi, my name is Sean M. I’m a Facebook game addict. Sort of. I don’t play a lot of Facebook games, I tend to pick one game and become dangerously attached to it for no discernible reason. It’s not like the games are even that fun. I just…I just like going to them and achieving the things they put in front of me. I need help.
I was only able to break my ridiculous addiction to Mafia Wars by starting up The Sims Social, which I’ll admit to playing ride now alongside writing up this post.
Well hopefully I’ll be able to give up The Sims Social by playing Avengers Alliance, produced by Marvel comics somehow. Announced on USA Today, it’s a free-to-play strategy game in which you’re a S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee charged with putting together a team to fight evil. A team composed of Marvel superheroes, of course.
So...everybody remembers there's a movie coming out in May, right?
Here’s what USA Today and TQ Jefferson, Marvel VP of games production, had to say:
At the outset of the game, players learn to customize their character with accessories and weapons, and are instructed in battle. “That character will go right into the game and fight alongside Spider-Man or Thor and Black Widow,” Jefferson says. “We want to make the game approachable.” Hard-core fans will revel in the appearance of more than 100 characters. “You don’t need to know 75 years of Marvel continuity to understand what is going on,” Jefferson says, “but if you do, those elements are in there.”
I’m happy to say I never have and never will spend actual money to play or improve these Facebook games. But there are worse ways to kill a few minutes online. There are also much, much better ways.
6 Fun Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2012
If we don’t count the bottle of Mountain Dew that I finished off that was still left over from 2011, then so far my 2012 New Year’s resolution to not drink soda is doing just fine! Thanks for asking. But a barren year of nothing to drink but water, milk and the tears of hungry orphans is not the only thing to look forward to in 2012. There’s a whole lot of crap going on, some of it better than others.
Also, it’s supposedly the last year on Earth. So there’s that.
Star Wars in 3D is not on this list
2011 was a great year for geeky pop culture. We had an amazing year of superhero movies, with Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Green Lantern and the X-Men: First Class. TV was pretty neat, seeing the end of Smallville and the start of Game of Thrones. Everything from video games, comic books, novels and horse racing had a lot going on last year. Can 2012 even stack up? Well it’s going to give it the old college try. Here are 6 Fun Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2012. But rather than just individual things, they’re more like categories.
Who Buys This Shit?
The world is full of a lot of stupid shit. And a lot of it you can buy. Take, for example, some of the recent offerings unveiled for merchandise that ties into the upcoming The Avengers movie next year. The website Comic Book Movies posted several of the images today, and I just have to roll my eyes at how insipid some of these items are. You can check them all out at the link I just posted, but I have a couple of my least favorites.
Who in their right mind would buy some of this garbage? It has nothing to do at all with the Avengers movie other than to slap the logo on a product, along with some highly detailed character images, and then just throw it in stores.
It’s like that scene in Death to Smoochy where the executives sit around a big table making check marks next to all the pointless drivel that will now that Smoochy’s face stamped onto it. Or all the jokes in Spaceballs. So much for either movie being some kind of satire.
I mean, c’mon, look at this shit:
Who in their right mind would pay money for any of this crap? Who needs an ‘Avengers’ bicycle helmet? It’s just a bicycle helmet with Avengers stickered onto the side. There’s absolutely no thought or creativity in any of these items. And that just disgusts me.
But those little plushie Avengers toys were adorable!
I Love Early 2000s Ant-Man
I’d like to think that my blog has become sort of a celebration of obscure superheroes and comic book characters. I can’t help it, that’s just the sort of thing I’m interest in. And yes, that in no way will help me in any career or with the ladies. I’ve made my peace with that. So when I see something glorious in regards to those obscure superheroes and comic book characters, I can’t help but cheer and want to share it with you.
Which brings us to Ant-Man from the early 2000s.
This is awesomeness defined
That’s a Mini-Mate of the early 2000s Ant-Man costume, and it’s brilliant. That is my favorite Ant-Man costume, and I’m a pretty big Ant-Man fan. Especially the guy who wore the costume, Scott Lang, who was the second Ant-Man. He was a member of the Avengers at the time. How’s that for obscure trivia knowledge, ladies? There’s more where that came from.
Anyway, it’s just a little thing, and I may never be able to buy it, but damn its awesome. Here’s the rest of the set, which will be available for purchase sometime next year:
That's classic Ant-Man in the bottom right. Cool, but not as cool.
Because apparently the world needs more Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk toys, am I right? For whatever reason, 2000s Ant-Man comes packaged with that purple guy, a Kree Sentry, because fuck if I know why.
I Want to be Brian Michael Bendis
Bendis, for those who don’t know, is one of the most popular comic book writers working today. Not only is he the long-time mastermind behind the fantastic Ultimate Spider-Man series, but he has spear-headed the entire Avengers franchise since 2004. Next year’s The Avengers movie owes part of its existence to Bendis’ pen, as he almost single-handedly catapulted the Avengers to their current heights of popularity. Which is why it was pretty big news yesterday that Bendis is going to step down from the Avengers franchise in 2012. The man is walking away at the height of his power. He has the entire world of comics to choose from as to what he wants to write next.
I wish I was Brian Michael Bendis.
Though I draw the line at having his bald babies
Being a comic book writer is my dream job. So Bendis is pretty much the role model in the world of comics. His writing is fantastic, I’m a huge fan of a lot of his stories and he gets to work with the best in the industry. Bendis and artist Mark Bagley hold the record for one creative team working on one single comic the longest, when together they wrote and drew 110 consecutive issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis has also written over 200 issues of the Avengers and their various spin-off titles, making him the creator who has spent the most time with the team. Bendis is a comic book god!
Bendis got his start writing some independent titles of his own creation. That’s how I plan to break into the industry. His work got him noticed, and he got more and more job offerings from professional companies. Eventually Marvel Comics found him and put him to work on Ultimate Spider-Man. The rest is awesome history. He’s exclusive to Marvel Comics, so he won’t be writing Batman anytime soon, but Marvel has a pretty big toy box to play with. Bendis didn’t announce what he’s going to write next in an interview with ComicBookResources.com, only that he’s got huge plans for ending his run on the Avengers.
“I’m going to wrap up ‘Avengers’ and ‘New Avengers.’ At the same time the first storyline of ‘Avengers Assemble’ will be done,” Bendis told CBR. “It’s a good time to move on to other things. Before I go, though, I’m ending things big. I’m in countdown mode…I’m very, very proud of that, and what we have coming up this summer gives me the opportunity to go out on a high note. I know enough about showbiz to know that’s a great time to go.”
Though frankly, I’ve never been a big fan of Bendis’ work on the Avengers. I’ve bought a few issues here and there, and followed side titles like Mighty Avengers and especially Dark Avengers, but I’ve just never much cared for his work on the main series. Bendis started writing the Avengers by breaking the team apart in 2004, in a story called ‘Avengers Disassembled’. For years, the Avengers had mostly been their own little corner of the Marvel Universe, with traditional characters like Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the usual rabble. The Avengers kept to themselves in terms of heroes on the team. And for whatever reason, I was never big into the Avengers. I was more of a Spider-Man or X-Men guy.
Compare this to DC comics and their main superhero team: the Justice League. That team is composed of all of DC’s biggest heroes, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etc.
Well under Bendis’ pen, he changed the Avengers to be more like the Justice League. After he broke up the team, he started a new series called New Avengers, in which he added Spider-Man and Wolverine, Marvel’s most popular characters, to the team.
Wolverine and Spider-Man solve everything
I’ve never been comfortable with that, and I’m still not. I read comics for the characters, and it just never fit, in my mind, to have Spider-Man and Wolverine as Avengers. Let alone having them on multiple Avengers squads, all in the name of getting the popular characters to sell as many books as possible. But hey, everybody else loved it and the Avengers quickly rose in popularity. No longer hiding in their own little corner, the Avengers were soon the franchise in comic books. All because Bendis is a great writer and really got to spread his wings in terms of writing.
Bendis also got to add his fan-favorite character, Luke Cage, to the Avengers, so that was pretty cool. Cage was always an incredibly minor character, but Bendis was a big fan and so he brought Cage with him when it came to writing New Avengers. Now Cage is one of the main players in the Marvel Universe.
Anyway, so since 2004, Bendis has been the main architect of the Avengers franchise. He’s played with hundreds of characters, written dozen of Earth-shaking stories and has led the entire Marvel Universe through some of its biggest, wildest adventures. So it’s going to be a shame to see him leave the title in 2012…but at the same time, it’s going to be awesome! Not only will we get to see someone new writing the Avengers, but Bendis will now get to write somebody else.
I can’t wait to see what he’ll do next. I just wish that was my job.
Henchman-4-Hire 