Everybody Lives! (At Least the Characters I Care About)
The final issue of The Clone Conspiracy landed in our laps this week and it was actually pretty cool! The last issue was probably the best issue of the event. It had excitement, tension, team-ups, funny bits and a deep and abiding use of some of Spider-Man’s strongest relationships.
And best of all, my favorite characters are still alive!
Sure, it looks bleak now
No spoilers here in the opening crawl. You’ll have to join me after the jump to see who I’m talking about.
For now, I enjoyed The Clone Conspiracy for the most part, especially this final issue. But the problem with The Clone Conspiracy is that it was more idea than actual story, and even then, not a very clever or original idea. Basically, the Jackal comes back, clones a bunch more people, and when Spider-Man refuses to join him, he threatens to kill everybody. Spidey and his allies then flip a switch and the day is saved.
The event was mostly characters explaining the idea to Spider-Man, with a few twists and sub-plots peppered into inflate the running time.
Like I said, it was fine. Not writer Dan Slott’s best Spider-Man event, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Now then, who gets to live?
6 Thoughts On The LEGO Batman Movie
I’m not going to call it the best Batman movie ever made, but Yeehaw, The LEGO Batman Movie is a hoot! Fun, funny and full of Batman-themed hijinks and Easter Eggs, the new sequel is mostly everything you could want from a follow-up to The LEGO Movie — and we’ve still got a proper sequel to that coming down the line!
The LEGO Batman Movie is quality Batman entertainment on a level we just don’t get to see very often. That makes it something special indeed.
Movie Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
The bar has now been set pretty high for the rest of the year full of superhero movies. It’s not insurmountable, but The LEGO Batman Movie was still a blast! It was so good, and I do so enjoy this style of humor, that I’m even considering watching their upcoming Ninjago movie. Hopefully the party doesn’t stop anytime soon.
Join me after the jump for my review of The LEGO Batman Movie!
Who Needs More Thor Movies?
Why make more Thor movies when we can just have comedy shorts? The first one was genius, and a second one is going to be part of the Doctor Strange DVD release this month! Here’s a brief tease/clip!
Hilarious! I want more and more of these for the entire build-up for Thor: Ragnarok. But they may raise the hype too much for the actual release.
————-
Why Does Batman Name His New Team the ‘Justice League of America’?
DC has relaunched a new iteration of the Justice League of America this past week and I’m a little confused. According to Justice League of America Rebirth #1, Batman forms the team to be a grounded, more human-focused group of superheroes as opposed to the god-like regular Justice League.
Batman is a big fan of The Flash TV show
We all know the branding reason why the new comic is called ‘Justice League of America’, but after reading this prologue issue, I’m wondering what the in-story reason is for Batman being so patriotic in naming his new team. When has Batman ever been a flag-waving character?
The Rebirth issue is a prologue about Batman going out and recruiting Black Canary, Lobo, the Ray, the Atom, Vixen and Killer Frost to form his new team. This isn’t the first time Batman has formed his own, more grounded Justice League. Any comic book scholar worth her salt would see this as an obvious Batman and the Outsiders-style group.
JLA is definitely the name he picks
But no, it’s not called ‘Batman and the Outsiders’. For reasons that go unexplained, Batman just copies of the name of the regular Justice League and tags ‘of America’ at the end, as if his team is only going to fight bad guys in the continental United States. It makes zero sense.
Especially when you remember that there already was a ‘Justice League of America’ in the New 52 continuity, which I’m pretty sure still applies in the Rebirth era. That team had a reason for using ‘of America’ in their name. They were legitimately government-based.
Remember them?
Has Batman forgotten about them? Is her purposefully co-opting the name for his new squad? What reason could that possibly serve?
Batman is a superhero who knows how branding works. And he’s clearly put a lot of thought into this team — hence why he’s recruited complete newbies Ray and Atom, and why he recruited Lobo for a grounded, more human-focused group of superheroes. So it just doesn’t make any sense why Batman, of all superheroes, would call this team the ‘Justice League of America’ instead of literally anything else.
But I suppose even Batman recognizes that ‘The Outsiders’ just isn’t marketable.
————–
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews -2/11/17
The superhero movie bombardment has begun! This year is going to be bursting at the seams with new superhero movies, and The LEGO Batman Movie has kicked things off with aplomb! It’s a super fun film and a great celebration of Batman! I’m going to put my review into next week’s List of Six, so stay tuned.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any Batman comics to review this week. Granted, about half a dozen different Batman-focused comics came out, but I don’t read them well enough to add them to the review pile. So you’re only getting fun Marvel Comics this week! Including the Comic Book of the Week, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!
Old school crime fighting
The latest issue of Inhumans vs. X-Men also came out this week, but it was kind of a non-issue. A bunch of stuff happened that will move the story along, sure, but none of it had much thematic or dramatic weight. The story just moved along, but at least Marvel didn’t make any more new blunders to vilify Cyclops.
Comic Reviews: Jessica Jones #5, Ms. Marvel #15, Power Man and Iron Fist #13, Unworthy Thor #4 and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #17.
Henchman-4-Hire 