Friday 25 December 2015

US SPIDER-MEN


Do you remember the times you sat through an old Stan Lee written comic and read in the words of Spider-Man "Us Spider-Men"? If you read Spider-Man, and/or watched the 80s cartoon (not the one with friends, voiced by Dan Gilvezan, the solo show, voiced by Ted Schwartz) the words "us Spider-Men" definitely stuck in your memory. 

The Amazing Spider-Man 27
Page 08

Little did Spidey guess back then how these words would be true after the year 2000, for both us -the audience- and him, and I do not speak of the 90s cartoon when his counterpart for that show met other counterparts of his, I exclusively mean when this version of Peter Parker met others Spider-Men, and before that a number of Spider-Women appear.

Thursday 17 December 2015

SUBTLE BIRD FLIP

Amazing Spider-Man 106
Words: Stan Lee
Art: John Romita sr.

You know that is a way of bird flipping, you can't look at the issue and the one before it and not think that way.

Spider-Man holds up a mask of his face, to tell the police scanner camera they saw a mask in the previous issue when his unmasked face was on screen.

Sunday 6 December 2015

SEEMS LIKE STAN KNEW


From Amazing Spider-Man v1 #063, this moment has Peter and Harry talking about a letter from Flash Thompson.
Guess Stan knew what would happen to some of the characters in the series after he stopped writing.
Or, maybe he left those plot threads dangling, for other writers to grab on them and handle them.

Thursday 3 December 2015

JESSICA JONES SEASON 1

I'll have to make one thing clear: I wanted to make this a review of the season, but I am unable to do that with this post, cause it will be riddled with spoilers, and people don't like to be spoiled before watching a series or a movie or anything.



What I knew about the character before watching the season is as follows:

  • Under the MAX imprint of Marvel Comics, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos launched their series ALIAS, about Jessica as the P.I, using that title as her office name.
  • Jessica slept with Luke Cage, then they moved her to 616 Marvel and she got married to him, and had a daughter.
  • She was one of Peter Parker's classmates in high school, and she had a crush on him even before he got bit by the spider (lucky for us, she didn't approach him, I prefer Mary Jane Watson as his wife, and Gwen Stacy as his first true love).
  • Their baby daughter apparently has no super powers, cause going by the logic explained in Spider-Island comic event, people who get Spidey like powers before mutating to giant spiders (I wish I made that up) from the virus designed by the Jackal are ones who have no powers, and the bed bug carrying the virus bit her.

Getting on with the show (I'll try to make it spoiler free):

Good story structure and storytelling, nothing as disappointing as what we see often on the new Flash TV series.
It has enough funny moments to not keep it fully gloomy.
And yeesh, when terrifying moments come by, they are terrifying.

It's a nice character arc, a journey, exploring characters beyond the limits of a film series.
If anyone has a character study in this, it's probably the villain; Kilgrave.

Did you know that he originally debuted in Daredevil comics?

Daredevil v1 #004

That's him, the guy with purple skin.

Both Daredevil and Jessica Jones fought villains to originally debut in a title not their own, but that villain in the comics left a bigger mark on the hero star of the Netflix series than the one he debuted in his title.

Kilgrave had a bigger impact on the story of Jessica Jones (related to neither Angelica Jones nor Rick Jones, and those two are not related either) than he ever did on Daredevil.
Kingpin left a bigger impact on Daredevil than he did on Spider-Man.
Biggest difference between the two villains is that Kingpin has a big significant role in Spider-Man's history.

In the end of the second or third issue of New Avengers, Kilgrave orders Luke Cage to kill all his friends. I don't remember what happened in the following issue, that series was also written by Brian Michael Bendis, who saw plenty of potential in the villain used for this season.

SUPERMAN WAS RIGHT

With the new Batman v Superman trailer currently released, have a funny image.



That is Superman dressed as Batman, and Lois Lane dressed as Robin.
From Superman v2 #130.

Monday 2 November 2015

Daredevil Season 1 Review



Time to dig in, and review this little gem, but before I do, here is the link to the source of this gem for a gif. Animus Vox.

I will not compare it to the movie, and I will try not to reference the comics reviewing this, as long as I can avoid it, because it will be a distraction. BUT.. I will reference the rest of the Marvel Cinematic line, because this canonically belongs there, and there is a number of nods to the movies, or things that might remind some of certain movies.

In the world of superheroes, in New York, with their eccentric talents and abilities, a group of gang leaders somehow manage to find an opportunity for control and profit in this, a chance they wouldn't find otherwise (I'm not kidding, that is how it is mentioned), and in their way stands a lone man in a mask, without super powers, or super gadgets, or super anything, except his sharpened senses, and his decade of thorough training, no extra strength.

Concept does sound silly, thinking about it this way, especially for where it belongs, but the execution is quite stellar (maybe that's too generous a word, think very good), and downgrading the levels of super for it work for the drama and the sake of story they want to tell. (I intentionally used present tense here in want, cause there are more seasons to go)

Matt Murdock was blinded as a 9 years old, he saved an old man from getting hit by a truck, the truck was carrying radioactive waste, and some of it spilled on Matt's eyes, blinding him, as his father tried to comfort him. Matt's dad wasn't the best role model, but he did what he needed to do, be a great father, able to help ease the pain and sorrow Matt felt from being blinded, up until the time he -Jack- was shot. During the life of his father,

Matt was able to manage his gifts, able to sort them out, things got out of hand after the death of Jack Murdock, and the nun in the orphanage called for Stick, the blind guy who could teach Matt how to handle his abilities, he also taught Matt how to be a fighter.

In episode 7, you see hints of mysticism in the series, these hints betray the ground of the show, the grit, grounding the abilities of Matt, first there is the Black Sky, the bearer of doom that comes to the city, then near the end of the episode, Stick sits with another, hinting about a war coming, Being familiar with the comic story of Stick helps with detecting what I speak of.

We do not see the recognizable costume of Daredevil before the last 20 minutes of the last episode, the majority of the season has the masked vigilante in a black outfit he bought on the internet, and I wonder if a blind person can recognize colors from radiation emitted from the monitor, or maybe if his radioactive blindness helps him do that.

The long review will take too long to write, and it will make this piece a long chore to sit through, so all I will say before moving on to the things I find are flaws of this 13 episodes season is that if you did not check the series, it is worth the time.

Things I do not like about the season are as follow:
  • The suit designer (Kingpin's tailor) mentions someone kidnapped by the Kingpin, they do not show that person, or a rescue attempt.
  • Ben Urich, one of the most important supporting characters in the history of the character, is killed in this season, in his house.
  • They spend too much time speaking in low pitched voice, every character, and too often, it's almost like they whisper every word. Speak up, seriously, speak normally.

And I will leave the review at that.