chezkevin

Captain America: The First Avenger

Today's post is reblogged from our sister site, airhikec001.livejournal.com. This has been post-dated to coincide with the post date of the original, which was August 16th, 2011. - Kevin, January 31st, 2012

Last week I got a Super-Soldier Swirl Ice cream cone. The week before that I got a Captain Coollatta from Baskin-Robbins. The week before that, I got a parachuting Captain America action figure.

So yeah. You can probably say I was a little hyped up about Captain America: The First Avenger.

The film bookends Marvel Studios' summer blockbusters, following Thor and X-Men: First Class. I got a chance to see the film with my friend over the weekend, so here are some of my thoughts.

Of all the avengers, Captain America is unique in that he's rooted in WWII-era America. The film follows Steve Rogers from a puny Brooklyn kid with moxy, to the Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America. The first half is a charming period piece, showing off sturdy Model T's and anti-Axis propaganda. The second half shifts to the theme of war, and doesn't quite succeed.

Tommy Lee Jones plays the recruiting officer great, and his acting is the best among the cast. It's amazing that the pre-Super-Solder-Serum Chris Evans is actually CG, because it looked so real. The film doesn't rely on special effects and it doesn't need to. The stunts stand out as the best for me - it's a huge rush to see Cap zipline down to hijack Dr. Zola's freight train - although some explosions and other theatrics were unnecessary and weigh the film down. Another flaw is the need to make Steve a performer for the troops. The U.S. Army has this big buff dude with enhanced athleticism, and they're gonna make him sing and dance? Besides that, the biggest complaint I have is the villain.

Hugo Weaving, the 21st century's bad guy (Agent Smith from The Matrix trilogy and Megatron from the Michael Bay Transformers flicks) chimes in as Red Skull. He discovers what I assume is the Cosmic Cube (it's never named), and uses it to make crazy lasers that vaporize people and their nutty faces. He leads HYDRA, a subdivision of the Nazis and makes the decision to "no longer stand in the shadow of Hitler," in order to capture Berlin and - the world! - but I failed to get a sense of that. All we see is him shooting down his comrades! Zero conquering -- not even a cartoon map of Herr Skull conquering Europe, country by country.

Anybody who keeps up with the Marvel universe will enjoy the tidbits in there. Bucky Barnes, Happy Hogan and Sharon Carter get their fifteen seconds, for example. Stan the Man also makes a cameo, despite not having created the character (that would go to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby), and Howard Stark plays a pivotal role in war technology. If you didn't get your Marvel fix from First Class, you can certainly get it here.

In sum, The First Avenger isn't a bad movie, but it's not a great one either. It'll tickle the comic book geek as well as the WWII geek in you, but it won't get more than a holler.

Trades for 8-15-11: JLA: A League of One, Ultimate Clone Saga

I've been binge-reading ever since I got my library dues out of the way, and chezkevin's got a whole new menu! We've got three trade paperbacks for you today! Read 'em and weep!

I found this gem from 2002 nestled away in the comics section of my local library. The entire thing is written, drawn, colored by Christopher Moeller. It's more a Wonder Woman story than a JLA one, as she visits the Oracle of Delphi, who foretells that the JLA will fight the last dragon on Earth, Drakul Karfang Serpentis Voldemortem, and will perish in order to defeat it. What follows is Wonder Woman taking down the entire JLA so that she can be a "league of one," and sacrifice herself against Drakul Karfang Ekans Kobra. It's lushly painted, paced well enough and certainly a Wonder Woman story with flair. The story is passable, but the style is irresistible. She even turns into a mermaid!

Remember that time Orson Scott Card decided to do a Marvel comic? This one is his first volume of
Ultimate Iron Man, and it's crummy with extra crum sauce. It's literally the origin of Ultimate Tony Stark, from the day he was born to the day those mean dudes in boarding school stuck him in a furnace to burn. The problem with the five issues is that they're not focused. Why devote an issue to Zebediah Stane's douchey-ness, to bring it up 2 issues later? Why send Tony to boarding school when he'll be in nerd school in 10 pages? The details are too scattered, especially when you only have 5 issues - 110 pages to tell them. The ending isn't even a real ending, somehow leading into Ultimate Iron Man 2: Electric Boogaloo. I love the Ultimates -- I have their first two hardcovers -- but I really find it hard to accept this as part of it.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Clone Saga collects Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley's issues 97-105 of Ultimate Spider-Man. The two redo the much-maligned Clone Saga from the 616 universe, which spanned over 4 titles and 3 years. I've never read that one, but this one is a blast. Ultimate Peter Parker is witness to a spawn of clones, like the Scorpion clone, the Tarantula clone, as Nick Fury tries to contain the situation in a militarization of Midtown. The whole nine issues play out like a tight action thriller, increasing in plot twists and cliffhangers. Oh snap, is that Gwen? Oh snap, that dude's a clone! Oh snap, that clone's really ugly! Oh snap, is that Ben Parker! I thought he was dead! Oh snap here comes Nick Fury with his Spider Slayers! To be a spider-fan and watch as Peter's life unravels before him is amazing. If ever you've read Ultimate Spider-Man, don't miss this one.

Attn: komics bloggers

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Friendly neighborhood komics blog! We have moved to our sister site, http://www.airhikec001.livejournal.com. Our resident blogger has come to the decision to no longer use two different blogs. You may now visit airhikec001.livejournal.com for all your comic book blog needs, along with movies and whatever junk this guy does.

We hope that this change does not inconvenience you, and hope it will enhance the internetting experience for you, our loyal reader.

Hang loose true believers,
chezkevin

A movie with Marvel's merry mutants!

Today's post is reblogged from our sister site, airhikec001.livejournal.com. This has been post-dated to coincide with the post date of the original, which was July 12th, 2011. - Kevin, January 31st, 2012

X-Men: First Class is Marvel's latest full-length feature film, hot on the heels of The Mighty Thor. Lemme tell you right now, it is one first class film. It's x-cellent! It is the blockbuster film to beat this summer. Words could not do the film the proper justice, but I'll try. For you. For America.

The title refers to the very first band of mutants - children of the atom! - recruited by a young Charles Xavier. Believing that peace and cooperation are the key to a better world, he is recruited by the American government. for his professorship in mutation and genetics. This being the swingin' sixties and the Cold War, Xavier has to stop former Nazi and current mutant, Sebastian Shaw, from engineering a WWIII (read: World War tres) in which mutants are the victor. This is where Erik Lensherr, a young Magneto comes in. As a child, Erik was tortured by Sebastian Shaw, the genetics director of Erik's concentration camp, to unlock his magnetic powers. Erik plays the part of an international secret agent, travelling from France to South America, climbing up the ladder of former Nazis to find Shaw and avenge his family.

So while we have the major conflict of good mutants vs. bad, we also have this conflict of ideologies between Erik and Charles. And it's a juicy one.

The film is a hit from beginning to end. I've only described the bones of 3 characters, but everyone has their own story. Hank McCoy learns what it means to be a beast, and Mystique finds a shift in her ideals. It's amazing how so many characters feel real in the duration of the film. I could definitely see a sequel. First Class holds a rich cast with a pulse-pounding plot that leaves you thinking at the end.

Truly, the movie theatre has never been more exciting than in this -- the Marvel Age of blockbusters!

The comic book perspective: So that's it for the review proper. Herein I'll comment on how some characters translated to the film. This part's unnecessary to understand the film, but, if you wanna brush up on your X-lore, you might gain some insight.

-There's an actual Marvel comic series titled "X-Men: First Class" by Jeff Parker et al. He's from Portland, Ore. In no way is the film based on that.

-Rose Byrne is a cutie as FBI agent Moira McTaggert! I'm very attracted to her straight, smooth hair. In the comics, she was a genetics scientist and former flame of Xavier. In the film, she has awesome hair!

-"First Class" could also be referring to the very first appearance of the X-Men from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. That's extremely unlikely though, 'cause those comics featured a bald, paraplegic Professor X with 6 mutants: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Havok, Angel, Beast and Iceman. 90-or-so issues through, the comic was making terrible numbers, so Stan decided to cancel it. By the time he finished the last issue, 93, the numbers were way up! But it was too late.

-The "Angel" of the film doesn't make any sense at all. We all know Angel is Warren Worthington, from the first generation of mutants (given a film incarnation in X3: The Last Stand). The girl with the fairy wings refers most closely to a current generation X-kid called Pixie.

-First Class, the film, draws on no specific storyarc, but draws the most from the writer who followed Stan the Man, Chris Claremont. He pioneered the way for modern X-comics, introducing a bunch of characters including Storm, Colossus, the Hellfire Club (featuring the Black King, Sebastian Shaw and the White Queen, Emma Frost), and Dark Phoenix.

-January Jones is a BOMBSHELL as Emma Frost.

-Some of Claremont's best stuff is collected in Essential X-Men Vol. 1 and 2. 2 is the Dark Phoenix saga.

Favorite scenes: Herein I recount my favorite scenes. There are spoilers. Deal with it.

-In a South American bar, Erik makes some small chat. . . before straight up murdering the bartender and the two barflies, former Nazis who were "following orders." It's a great scene, and it helps you begin to understand Erik's single-minded ardor for revenge.

-Previously fueled by pain and rage, Erik becomes powerful enough to turn a satellite yards away, only when Xavier unlocks a touching memory of his mother. The memory was suppressed by years of pain from Shaw, but in this one moment of time, the pain went away.

-Sebastian Shaw's whole mutant deal is that he absorbs energy, so if you toss a nuke at him, he'll just absorb the kinetic energy and metabolize it. . . somehow. In the final confrontation, Charles telepathically freezes Shaw in order to detain him, but Erik, in pursuit of revenge, takes a German quarter and, ever so slowly, pushes it to Shaw's forehead through his brain and out the other end. The camera juxtaposes a silent, incapacitated Shaw with an agonized, screaming Xavier. Xavier feels the pain that Erik meant for Shaw, and it is the pain of a friend cutting the ties that bond them.

-EVERY SCENE WITH MAGNETO. THIS DUDE ROCKS. I really think that First Class is a Magneto origins story. Sure, there are other people, but he is the main story. The story begins with his conflict and ends with the resolution of his conflict. Sure, Xavier is crippled and gets that wheelchair, but it's trivial compared to the emotional journey that Erik undergoes.

If you didn't get it by now, First Class rocks. It's a great movie and a superb comic book movie. I love it.