Let’s Start the Day With a Little Batman!
The video game convention E3 is in full swing this week, with all sorts of trailers and previews and announcements. I bet it’s just a bunch of fun to be there. Unfortunately, I am not cool enough to get to go, so I’m stuck back here just watching the trailers on Youtube. C’est la vie.
But one of those trailers is a whole mess of gameplay footage for Batman: Arkham Knight!
Just look at the scope of that game! That cityscape is huge! Or maybe it’s just the fact that driving around on the streets in the Batmobile makes it look bigger than when we’re zipping around on rooftops in previous games. Either way, that part looked great. And the Batmobile looks cool…except it instantly made me think of any Grand Theft Auto game, where the moment you start driving around at high speeds is the moment you’re going to cause a ton of collateral damage. The game employee who managed to make turns and drive mostly straight might be good, but the rest of us are going to crash into everything around us. So I guess it’s a good idea to remove pedestrians.
Still, the game looks pretty darn sweet. It’s not enough to convince me to plop down several hundred dollars on a new console, but maybe I’ll get a better graphics card for my computer at least…
I Still Believe in Ant-Man
Don’t get me wrong, it is a tragedy that director Edgar Wright stepped away from the Ant-Man movie because Marvel Studios tampered with his script. I love Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and taken as a whole, the Cornetto Trilogy is among my Top 5 movies of all time. And if you haven’t seen Wright’s TV show Spaced, then do yourself a favor and find it, because Spaced is glorious. Wright is a comedic genius, as far as I’m concerned, and I was looking forward to his Ant-Man film more than Joss Whedon’s Avengers 2.
But in life, we don’t always get what we want, and even the world of silver screen superheroes can be bitter and heart-breaking.
But I have not given up on the Ant-Man movie. I still have some big expectations for that tiny little dude.
Spider-Man who?
Last week, Marvel announced that director Peyton Reed had signed on to take over from Wright. Reed has had success with comedies such as The Break-Up and Yes Man, neither of which anybody remembers. However, according to the Interwebs, both have made more money than any of Wright’s films, so the world is just a screwed up place to begin with. Director Adam McKay, of Will Ferrell and Anchorman fame, will help out with the script. Though it remains unknown if Marvel is going to start over from scratch with the script or if they’ll use Wright’s original script and just tweak it to fit what they want.
Based on the movie synopsis, also released last week, it sounds like they’ll just be tweaking.
Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, con-man Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
That synopsis sounds awesome. That’s exactly what I want the Ant-Man movie to be about.
So after all of that drama, it looks like Ant-Man is finally coming together. I still think Paul Rudd is going to be amazing as the lead, Scott Lang, and Michael Douglas should provide more than enough gravitas to Hank Pym.
For some reason, though, a lot of comments I read about this news were that people weren’t going to bother to see Ant-Man now that Wright is gone. First of all, shame on me for reading Internet comments from angry nerds to begin with. That’s never going to end well. (Other than comments on my blog, which are some of the smartest, handsomest, prettiest, most well-thought-out comments on the web!). But second of all, why would anyone think Ant-Man is going to be terrible without Wright?
I’ll be the first to say that Wright was probably going to make an amazing movie. But Marvel Studios has not let us down yet, movie after movie. And they’ve lost directors before and still produced amazing films. Losing Wright is a terrible loss. But Marvel have more than earned our trust.
Ant-Man is going to be great. But maybe now I’m looking forward to Avengers 2 just a little bit more…
Constantine Will Have DC Cameos Too!
That Constantine TV show is still coming out, so the good folks working on the show have released another trailer – this one with a very huge Easter Egg!
Also be warned, this video might get taken down at some point today. Watch it while you can!
Did you see it? They weren’t exactly subtle about it, but that was probably the point. Kind of like how Arrow teased the mask of Deathstroke right from the very beginning. Constantine is apparently going to involve the Helm of Doctor Fate! That’s actually fairly exciting news. Maybe we’ll get a lot of mystical cameos in Constantine. Maybe even Zatanna will show up!
New Guardians of the Galaxy Stuff Makes Me Giddy
TV commercials for Guardians of the Galaxy have apparently started hitting the airwaves, and while I don’t have TV in my apartment to watch them, the Internet is kind enough to provide. Thanks Internet! These actually look pretty darn badass…though also clearly heavily edited to get the dialogue they want to line up into a little scene. Still good though.
Hopefully the world doesn’t grow tired of awesome movies by the time this comes out. And I wince every time I remember that the new Ninja Turtles movie is going to come out only a week later. Guardians has the potential to be amazing. But people are going to see Ninja Turtles because they know it. Guardians of the Galaxy has to hit big right out of the gate.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 6/7/14
Happy Birthday, mom! If it wasn’t for you, mom, none of us would be here today reading a bunch of comic book reviews. So I think we can all thank her for that. I’ll probably give her a phone call later, just to make it official. But the great thing about having a blog is using it to talk to family members! I have more conversations with my brother via the comments section of my blog than I do through any other means. Good times.
And good comics – mostly! A random smattering of books came out this week, and I read an even more random smattering of that random smattering. Of import is the fact that I finally got back to reading Black Widow and Moon Knight, two new books I didn’t want to lose track of if I could help it. On top of those classics, we’ve got new issues of All-New X-Factor, Batman Eternal and Original Sin…which is turning out to be pretty much garbage. Hopefully this will mark the death knell of the Big Event at Marvel.
Comic Book of the Week goes to newcomer Cyclops #2! I never had much intention of reading the new series starring Young Cyclops, but after the first issue got such stellar reviews, I just had to take a look, and the book is as good as everyone says!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cyclops is the most dynamic character at Marvel right now.
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Factor #9, Batman Eternal #9, Black Widow #7, Cyclops #2, Moon Knight #4 and Original Sin #3.
Henchman-4-Hire 