Category Archives: Marvel
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/9/13
Welcome back to another round of reviews, Henchboys and Henchgirls! We’ve got a pretty standard week of books, though personal favorite Captain Marvel makes a big return after months of being buried in crossovers and tie-ins. Of course, now the comic goes on hiatus for four months, because, as always, we can’t have nice things.
But at least Forever Evil, Green Lantern and Mighty Avengers are all pretty entertaining, and we’ve got the debut of Amazing X-Men #1! No doubt Nightcrawler fans are bursting at the seams to see him come back from the dead. Personally, I’m just wondering why this story needed a whole new superfluous X-Men book.
Comic Book of the Week goes to the pretty great Captain Marvel #17. Don’t stay gone for too long, Carol!
Everybody loves a good butt joke
Comic Reviews: Amazing X-Men #1, Captain Marvel #17, Forever Evil #3, Green Lantern #25 and Mighty Avengers #3.
And So, the Experiment That Was Two X-Forces Comes to a Close
I have long raised a questioning eyebrow to Marvel Comics’ plan over the past year to publish two separate X-Force titles: Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force. Both are about a team of renegade X-Men fighting evil on the fringes of superherodom, and both feature a random assortment of characters, many of whom didn’t necessarily have anything to do with X-Force. It seemed that Marvel was only concerned with wringing as much money out of the brand name as they could.
Well now it seems that grand experiment is coming to an end. Marvel is cancelling both titles and combining only some of the characters into a new adjectiveless X-Force, launching in February.
What went wrong? Who can say. Were the titles selling well? Did Marvel wise up and realize the world doesn’t need two separate X-Force titles? Was nobody enjoying Puck?
These are questions that only those in the know can properly answer, and Marvel isn’t returning my calls. I tried reading both comics but gave up after an issue or two because I just didn’t see the point. On the one hand, they were both made well enough. But I didn’t care about the characters or the plots. That’s on me, not on them.
Well Marvel and USA Today are all manner of excited to tell you about the new series, which will be written by new writer Simon Spurrier, with art by Rock He-Kim. Based on the interview, Spurrier is going to take X-Force back to basics so that they’re simply a black-ops mutant team doing black-ops type things.
“What I’ve taken from those early X-Force episodes is a take-no-prisoners attitude towards action,” Spurrier says. “But I like to think I’ve injected a little post-millennial sophistication, too. “This isn’t a steroidal macho-fest: It’s a slick, nasty, oh-so-grim beast that’ll cut your throat and blow up your headquarters before you even know it’s there.”
Of the more than a dozen characters in Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force, only three are going to make this new team: Cable, Psylocke and Fantomex. Though Spurrier does suggest that other characters will probably pop in from time to time.
Of special note is a new member: Marrow! And since I once proclaimed Marrow my second favorite X-Woman of all time, you better believe I’m going to pick up this book just for her.
On Marrow, Spurrier compared her to Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, and said:
“She’s a fighter too damaged by own experiences to ever really fit in,” Spurrier says. “She’s one of those brilliant characters which the X-books handle so well who can’t rightly be described as a hero or a villain: a product of her own tragedy.”
So because of Marrow, I’ll definitely be buying this book. What does everybody else think?
Daredevil, Luke Cage and the Defenders are Coming to Netflix!
Holy Guacamole, people! This is Earth-shattering news! Marvel and Disney have teamed up with Netflix to produce four live action superhero TV shows, which will eventually culminate in a Defenders team-up spectacular. There are going to be live action Netflix shows for Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones!
Move over, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., looks like Marvel is going to make live-action superhero TV after all.
I don’t even really know how to fathom this information. It’s beyond exiting! Everybody has been clamoring for Marvel to do something with Daredevil since they got the rights back a few years ago, and a TV show is a much better, and much cooler idea than just a new movie reboot. Add along Luke Cage and the rest and we’ve got the makings of something truly exciting!
It seems Marvel wants to do for TV what they did for movies with their Phase 1 films all leading to The Avengers. If it worked once, it can definitely work again!
The shows will launch in 2015, and apparently they’ve signed up for 13 episodes each, leading to the big Defenders mini-series at the end. The shows will all be connected by the Hells Kitchen setting.
“This deal is unparalleled in its scope and size, and reinforces our commitment to deliver Marvel’s brand, content and characters across all platforms of storytelling. Netflix offers an incredible platform for the kind of rich storytelling that is Marvel’s specialty,” said Alan Fine, President of Marvel Entertainment. “This serialized epic expands the narrative possibilities of on-demand television and gives fans the flexibility to immerse themselves how and when they want in what’s sure to be a thrilling and engaging adventure.”
All of this is just…just wow! I’m getting chills over here. It’s like the people at Marvel and Disney are really sitting down and coming up with the coolest possibly uses for all of their characters and properties. Could we really possibly live in a world as beautiful as that?
So Many Thor Parodies
Thor: The Dark World is right around the corner, and as such, the Internet has seen fit to bless us with tons of Thor parodies! Behold!
You can always count on the Screen Junkies to have a lot of fun. Those are some funny people they’ve got working over there putting together Honest Trailers.
But what about an 8-bit version of Thor? The good people at CineFix have done just that!
And let’s not forget our good friends at Cinema Sins!
If you’re a fan of Thor – and who isn’t? – this is your week! Personally, I can’t wait to see The Dark World. I’m excited.
The 6 Coolest Middle Eastern Superheroes
With the announcement yesterday that Marvel is going to introduce a new Pakistani Ms. Marvel, I started thinking about all of the other Middle Eastern superheroes I’ve seen introduced since 9/11. In an effort to combat the obvious prejudices in this country, both Marvel and DC have taken it upon themselves to diversify their superhero line-ups with characters of Middle Eastern descent. And as great as that is, most of these characters rarely stick around.
The market is never very kind to new characters in general.
Especially if they have weird hands
Still, we can’t forget about them if I keep blabbing about them. So in my own effort to celebrate diversity, I’ve decided to take a look at all Middle Eastern superheroes to pick out the coolest ones. Some you may recognize, some you may have forgotten about and some you may have never known existed. But trust me, they are all cool.
