Ant Man Natural Enemy Review

Posted on August 24, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to look at another Marvel novel. It’s been quite a while since I read one and naturally this one came out to help hype the movie and vice versa. Ant Man is typically a fun character who can certainly hold his own book, but with Ant Man comes his army of ants and that’s where things typically start to get a little dicey. This book was fun, but the animal violence does do a number on it and this would have probably been even worse if it was in film format.

Scott is just trying to have a good time as he goes on various dates, trying to find a step mom for his daughter. He’s had no luck so far and then the cops let him know that a dangerous criminal has escaped a maximum security jail and may be coming over to destroy him and his family. As such, Scott, his daughter, and his ex wife have been given police protection and this threatens to destroy all of the harmony that Scott has built into his life. He may have to don the costume to fix this mess, but will his daughter be able to forgive him for embarrassing her in front of her friends by having to be with an escort? Only time will tell!

The book is more about the comic continuity than the movies, which is neat since it means that we can have more references like Spider Man being around. Iron Man also has a guest star appearance although he looks pretty bad. He is given one job, to protect Cassie. (Scott’s daughter) Then he allows her to leave and get held at gunpoint by the main villain. That’s definitely not the greatest way to prove that he’s a good hero deep down. Scott trusted him and this is how he was repaid. I definitely thought that it was a bit much as there’s no way Cassie could have escaped. Tony got in a lot of good burns along the way though, but his quick banter was not enough this time.

We may as well launch into what went wrong with the book now. Towards the end of the book, a lot of ants start to commit suicide by the thousands. Across the entire East Coast they start to go extinct thanks to a virus that hit them. This was a plot point that we really did not need. The book could have just made the ants go crazy or something, but dying off like that definitely wasn’t cool.

I also had a bit of an issue with how the book ended as Scott just walks away from the main villain, leaving her to get swarmed by ants and flies. She somehow lived through the experience, but that was a very cruel/downright evil thing to do and I thought that it really wrecked any chance that Scott had of being a likable lead. He was essentially going for the “eye for an eye” mentality, which is something that villains usually do. It just felt really drastic and it made me lose respect for the main character.

Another issue with the ending involves how Scott’s secret identity is out. This isn’t a negative, but I’m just going to call plot hax on the whole deal. No matter how unpopular Ant Man is next to heavyweights like Iron Man and Thor, the whole point of the secret identity was to protect Cassie and his ex wife. That’s because there will always be villains who want revenge and when people know who Scott’s allies are, they will be targeted. Cassie is now in danger from just about every villain. The book plays it off as if nobody cares about the reveal, but it’s actually a rather dicey ending for Scott. This will completely change the status quo assuming he ever gets another book again.

Beyond that, it was a fairly enjoyable read. I blasted through just about the whole book in one sitting. The print was nice and large so the read was very manageable. I’ll take 300 large print pages over 80-100 regular sized ones any day. Large print is just soooo much better than the normal size. I wouldn’t say that this novel was quite as good as the Civil War one or the Fantastic Four adventure, but it was still another good addition to the book format.

Scott was mostly a good main character despite his mean streak at the end. I could do without the constant flirting though as he comes across as very shallow and two dimensional. You are left wondering why and if you should even root for him as he doesn’t seem like a guy who will stay with a commitment for very long. It’s good that he can take a joke though even if the rest of the characters typically can’t. Unfortunately, Cassie was not quite as good as Scott or even close. She started out as a decent character who didn’t care for Scott’s strict rules, but still abided by them. That changed midway through the book as she constantly complained about Scott’s secret identity and gave him a hard time about everything. She went off the handle several times and you cannot sympathize with her revenge plot or her crush on a random guy in school. She comes across as a rather shallow character as well, but a much more annoying one and blaming everything on Scott just isn’t cool.

The villains are ultra generic so there’s no real need to talk about them. I think that the cops looked decently good and they gave it their all the whole time. They even saw through Scott’s fake story in the nick of time! They may not have it all together since they are outsmarted by random prisoners, but they came through when it counted. Although, getting shot and evaded in one scene made one agent look pretty bad and woefully unprepared.

Surprisingly, there is not a whole lot of action here. It’s more of a comedy/slice of life book. Ant Man has a quick bout with some gunmen and against some other insects in the cliamx, but that’s about it. Mostly, it’s about the Scott Lang drama as he tries to be very polite even when everyone takes turns insulting him. He tries to be the bigger man and now he can also be known as the smaller one. (There are a few jokes about that, which he handles well)

Overall, Natural Enemy was a fun book to read. It’s one of those titles that you will breeze through and enjoy while going through it, but on a technical level, it still made enough mistakes to keep it from a high score. The animal violence was just unacceptable and the ending wasn’t that good either. I do like the potential of his identity being public though and it certainly gives him a lot more freedom in day to day life. The only problem is that Cassie and his ex wife will be in permanent danger now. It’s why it was so easy for Iron Man as he didn’t really have any friends except for Pepper. She would be in danger, but nobody else. Ant Man has a lot more to lose at this point. I recommend checking out this book if you happen to see it on the shelf. You’ll have read through the volume before you know it!

Overall 5/10

X-Men The Road to Onslaught Volume 3 Review

Posted on August 23, 2015 by dreager1

The Onslaught event was definitely a big deal in the Marvel Universe and it’s one of the few big events that I have not read yet. It sounds like fun, but for some reason all of the X-Men trade paperbacks from the 80’s to early 2000’s are huge so I’m fine with slowly going through them all. This one was certainly very big, but it was a lot of fun so I really cruised through the stories. There was really just one that was a big miss for me as the rest of the adventures were enjoyable. This was definitely the classic X-Men group and they looked good as you would expect!

Sometimes it’s nice to get the negative out of the way first so let’s talk about why the Angel story was just no good. For starters, the comic was in black and white for effect. Now, I’m a big manga fan so I’m not opposed to that style, but the art has to be clear for it to work and this was the crazy 90’s…it was anything but clear. You essentially miss out on most of what’s happening on screen and while that’s not a bad thing for some aspects of it, this doesn’t do the comic any favors. This story also had some animal violence as birds were attacking the main heroine of the story. Why…why….whyyyyyyyyyy!

The story was also just randomly dark as it was all metaphysical as the lady had actually been involved with some domestic violence issues and her way of coping was by making these illusions. She helped Angel to accept his wings and he helped her move on. The whole story was just iffy and I also felt bad for Psylocke since Angel had been shutting her out, but opened up to a complete stranger. Yeah, that’s Angel for you right? The comic could not end soon enough!

All right, iffy story aside, let’s talk about one of the more enjoyable ones. Wolverine and Angel decided to find a mystic to help heal Psylocke since she was already far beyond the reaches of conventional medicine. Dr. Strange decided to come along as well since fighting mystical battles is really what he does best. He’s not at the height of his strength due to constant circumstances likely occurring in his own series, but he’s still more than a match for the relative lightweights that he has to deal with here. The heroes basically head into another version of hell and have to…negotiate with the master there.

That was a fun story. It was quick, had good fights, and the dialogue was good. It was a popcorn fun X-Men comic that just felt like a good superhero story through and through. The heroes fought the villain and found the cure. No cliffhangers or loose plot lines, but a complete story from start to finish. Dr. Strange also looked good and got the respect that he deserves. Of course, the best story was yet to come.

My favorite story arc was the two part Brood event. I hadn’t expected great things as the Brood can be cool creatures to look at, but at the same time, their brutal style of fighting could have been a little dicey for the comic. Luckily, it was handled well. A pastor and his wife had gotten a lot of publicity within their town as the wife appeared to be able to heal someone with a touch. While the pastor was thrilled about this, he did not know that his wife had actually been contaminated by the brood and was turning everyone else into her minions by “healing” them. The X-Men arrive to deal with the threat, but find out that she is fighting against her destiny. Can the X-Men help to save her or will they be forced to put her down before she loses control?

The X-Men naturally make the right move although Wolverine does want to destroy the lady the entire time they are talking. He’s definitely not feeling generous at the moment, that’s for sure. It’s part of his subplot on how he’s losing his humanity thanks to some experiments that had been occurring, but it’s also in character. The lady tries very hard to keep control and decides that maybe it would be best for her to die so that everyone else can live. That being said, it’s sad for her followers since the brood warriors destroy all of them with ease.

At least they were all Christians so they’ve gone to a better place. I was impressed with how openly the comics talked about God and the Bible and the characters were portrayed well. The Pastor did a lot of praying and his wife’s faith in God is what helped her be the first human to ever resist the Brood. That was really cool and it even has a good ending as the Priest gives a good sermon. God was certainly given his due credit here and this is the kind of adventure that you wouldn’t expect to see nowadays. Certainly the highlight of the collection and the fights with the Brood creatures were pretty epic as well. The X-Men held their own even if it was a losing battle.

Another really good story involved the return of the Onslaught plot. This is the Road to Onslaught right so we need at least relevant comic there. His weakest sentry decided to test the X-Men as he warped their members to the middle of nowhere to conduct his battle experiment. Wolverine and Storm quickly coped as they are used to this kind of test. The rest of the team quickly followed suit and Cyclops reminded them that he has never failed a test like this during his whole tenure as an X-Man. The Sentry fights with them and the fight is certainly a lot of fun as this guy is no lightweight.

The fight takes up most of the issue and each of the X-Men members gets a chance to shine. They’re certainly a powerful team even if they don’t have many heavy weights like the Avengers. A power hitter would have certainly come in handy here. They do manage to make a statement though and the Onslaught Sentry gets a little salty and reminds them that he was the weakest before leaving. That may have been a blow to their confidence, but they won and that’s what counts right?

After that, there was a short issue where Iceman went to Emma Frost’s place to ask her how he can be healed since he had a hole in his chest and wasn’t sure what would happen if he tried to go back to human form. He was definitely a little out of character there as he basically cracked, but part of his ongoing character arc is that he’s being forced to become a serious figure for the younger members and that’s likely not doing him any favors. She basically tells him that it won’t have any effect on his human form and she’s right. Not the greatest of issues, but it wasn’t bad either.

The collection ends with the Wolverine plot continuing as he fully gives way to the beast within him to save someone. The actual events occurred in another comic, but this deals with the aftermath. Stick sends Elecktra to stop Wolverine and likewise, the X-Men are on his trail. Considering that she’s a guest star, Elecktra doesn’t really do anything and only steps in for a very small role. The villain is a guy who commands stone and summons up a lot of minions to defend himself. They’re basically rock versions of various Marvel characters, which was fairly interesting, but the villain wasn’t much of a threat.

It was a decent comic, but not very notable. It’s sad for Wolverine to see how much he had changed with this though. It’s good to see that he retained most of his mind though as he still saved Cyclops when he was in danger. Wolverine was missing his Adamantium for most of the collection, which really hurt his fighting strength. Without it, a lot of the events in these comics would have been much easier for him. He was still a good figure though and the team always needs a devil’s advocate to help them consider all of the options even if you naturally root against just about all of Wolverine’s ideas.

Cyclops and Jean Grey look good as they still lead the team into battle and act like the experienced veterans should. Cyclops is always a confident leader from start to finish and Jean Grey is the reason why they ended up helping the Pastor and his wife against the Brood. Iceman was a good character for the most part even if he did get ultra serious and blew up at Emma without a whole lot of provocation. The Beast has never been very likable for me and this didn’t change that. Likewise, Dark Beast isn’t my kind of villain.

Storm may be the team’s power hitter at the moment and her weather abilities always come in handy. Bishop got a decently large role here, which was cool since I rarely see him in the comics. I can certainly say that I liked his portrayal here as he was the military kind of character who followed orders right away while still having the presence of mind to question some orders. He really helped the team out with his energy absorption abilities. I still prefer Cable as a character, but Bishop is good as well.

Going back to the Beast part, I almost forgot to mention his story arc. He had been trying to find a cure for the Legacy virus for some time now, but he was not getting any closer to solving the riddle. Unfortunately for him, he would not get the chance as Dark Beast arrived and kidnapped him. So, for most of the comics in this collection, it is really Dark Beast who is on the team and not the normal version. The comic is a little sad though as we basically watch Dark Beast go on a killing spree as he murders just about everyone from Beast’s past except for his parents who he couldn’t bring himself to destroy. This was definitely not my favorite character and I’m looking forward to seeing someone stop him. Bishop did arrive at the X-Men’s base to stop a traitor, maybe the traitor was “Beast.”

As you would expect, the art is very bold and large as the 90’s style is famous for this. Still, it works quite well this time and I’d say that it’s some of the clearest 90’s art that I’ve seen. The fight scenes are certainly intense and one thing that I’ve always liked about this style is that everyone looks tough. If you thought that every villain and hero did not have a 6 pack, you were clearly not reading the 90’s comics.

Overall, This was a fun collection. I can safely say that the Onslaught arc had a good amount of build up that occurred before it. As you would expect from the X-Men series, there were certainly a lot of plotlines running around beneath the surface and Rogue got a cameo as well. I’m sure that she’ll be more important to the plot at a later point and politics are not going well for the heroes either so they may have to go below ground at some point. Yes, things are definitely reaching a boiling point and I’m sure that the next volume will be solid as well. With all star comics like the Brood 2 Part Adventure as well as the Onslaught prequel, this is a must read for all X-Men fans. The roster for the team is quite good and Dr Strange even makes a guest star appearance. There’s also a guide to the mansion at the end of the comic, which really goes in depth so if you’ve ever wondered how the team operated or what went on beneath the surface, this will help!

Overall 8/10

Wolverine Review

Posted on August 17, 2015 by dreager1

Wow, I actually read a Wolverine comic right? It’s definitely a rare event as he’s the kind of character who tends to have comics that are super violent or just not good. Luckily, this was from the classic days and it covers the rather legendary arc that has been adapted into a TV show as well as a movie. It’s very interesting to see the original version after all this time although I can safely say that the anime probably handled it better than the other two versions. Unfortunately, there are a few wrenches thrown into the mix that stop this from being the good comic that it should have been.

Wolverine made it home after a tough mission of stopping poachers when he finds out that his girlfriend has been married to someone. It’s a marriage of honor so Mariko does not want to back out of it even though her husband is basically a villain who attacks her whenever he feels like it. Wolverine decides that he’ll enter it and he heads over to save her. It’ll be tougher than he thought as Wolverine is poisoned, beaten, and forced to retreat. Can he break through the defenses and save Mariko with the help of a mysterious assassin named Yukio?

There is also an aftermath which is included where the X-Men arrive to witness the marriage between Wolverine and Mariko. Unfortunately, there are still some past demons to attend too as Viper and the Silver Samurai decide to destroy Wolverine and Mariko. Storm’s begun to lose control of her powers and the other X-Men are poisoned so they are of no help. Can Wolverine don the costume once more to take out these villains? The graphic novel ends at a rather interesting point so we don’t really see the conclusion to this story.

By “interesting point” I’m basically saying that it’s a very sad, but ironic ending that was unexpected. I was impressed at the collection ending here to be honest as it’s the complete opposite of the ending that you would have expected. The whole comic Wolverine is trying to prove that he is worthy to be with Mariko. He tries to prove that he is a human and not an animal. You expect a Cinderella ending as they get together and everything is happy. Well, let’s just say that things don’t quite end like that.

If you like the X-Men, then you’ll probably be disappointed by the fact that none of them look very good. As I mentioned, they were all poisoned almost immediately upon appearing so only Storm and Rogue really got to do anything. The rest of them were basically played and toyed with so they didn’t look like the heroes that you would typically expect. Cyclops is slowly figuring out that his girlfriend may know more than she’s letting on, but I’m pretty sure that he figures it out too late and the situation ends up blowing up. He did a pretty poor job of letting her know about his friends though, but she did a good job of handling it well.

I’m not sure what’s going on with Storm, but now I have finally learned where she first got the Mohawk design. I hope that there is a good reason for her losing control of her abilities and not just that she didn’t keep her emotions in check. It should be something better than that I’d hope. While she couldn’t control the weather too well, she still did good in the fight, which was certainly nice to see. At least some of the X-Men could pull their weight! Rogue wasn’t so good here. Her power was certainly nice to have, but a laser blast being able to nearly destroy her? Yeah…I’m not so sure about that and Wolverine could have healed her in a less dramatic way. That just felt forced into the story for the lolz.

The art was quite good for this comic although I would expect nothing less from the classic X-Men days. It feels like the 90’s show and there is a certain sense of grand scale here that makes it distinct from the average comic. The fight scenes are actually quite long and really drawn well. I haven’t seen action scenes last this long for street level battles in quite a while and it’s safe to say that they would probably be shorter in a modern comic. Between the good writing and the solid art, the comic did very well on a technical level.

Unfortunately, the comic fell into the animal violence trap that I always warned against. Wolverine is forced to kill a bear since it was dying slowly from poison that had infected it. The Bear also got quite a few victims before being stopped. No matter what the reason, seeing Wolverine take down a bear crippled the score. There’s also a dead dog that appears later for no discernible reason. The plot of Mariko being attacked by her husband was also a dark theme that really had no place here. The comic could have just said that she didn’t like him and Wolverine would have still been ready to help. That would have been a much better change if you ask me.

Yukio was not as cool as she was in the anime. To an extent, it’s neat how she doesn’t fear death and is always ready to tackle really bad odds. On the other hand, she was portrayed like Black Cat, but an even more sinister one. Taking out Wolverine’s friend wasn’t cool, but she basically just shrugged it off since it didn’t really matter to her. After the main arc, she showed some promise as a rival who will appear once in a while. As long as she is a rival to Wolverine as a warrior and not still going after his heart, then she may be all right. Until then, I can’t say that I’m a fan.

Mariko also wasn’t that good as she believes that following honor is everything even at the expense of her safety. She made quite a few bad decisions as the comic went on and never became a likable character. Shingen made for a pretty tough boss and he was a decent villain. He pretends to care for Mariko, but this is clearly not the case as he is really just fighting to try and make himself look better. As Mariko says later on, he basically gave up his right to the family name as he became nothing more than a common criminal.

As for Wolverine, this definitely feels like the real version of the character. He spares the villains sometimes and just uses the claws on others. He gets the job done no matter the cost and will ultimately help his friends. Does this necessarily make him a hero? No, but if he’s on your side then you can trust that you’ll be all right. He takes care of his own and is a nice guy. People are just always pushing his buttons. It’s good that he has a healing factor and such strong bones though since he takes a whole lot of punishment in this collection. Next to Cyclops, he’s definitely my favorite X-Men member and it’s easy to see why he has so many fans. He’s a very likable and charismatic character who can easily hold his own series.

Overall, Wolverine was certainly an interesting read. I feel like the collection should have had an actual name rather than just being called Wolverine, but it is what it is. If not for the animal violence and the Mariko subplot, this would have definitely been your average 7. As it stands, those mistakes are enough for me to lower the score and recommend that you read Superman Unchained instead for a story of how true heroes overcome adversity. This is probably Frank Miller’s best work though and Chris has definitely had quite a good history with his various Uncanny X-Men stories. If you don’t mind the Bear scene, then this is probably the definitive Wolverine story for sure. There’s a reason why everyone likes to adapt this story after all. It’s just really fitting for Wolverine and gave him a lot of character development as he finally surpassed his bestial instincts.

Overall 4/10

Fantastic Four (2015) Review

Posted on August 14, 2015 by dreager1

This film was certainly underwhelmed a whole lot of people. It’s very hard to find any positive reviews of it online as I’ve only seen one myself. (Though tomatoes should have a few more) IRL I’ve only met 2 others who really liked it at the moment so things aren’t looking too good for the film. It was essentially doomed before it ever came out critically, but I thought that the trailers showed potential. This wouldn’t be the next Avengers, but it would be a good film and I was right on the money with that hunch!

Well, this is essentially the origin story of the team so the plot is self explanatory. Reed Richards is a super genius and one day he manages to build a teleporter. The government quickly recruits him so that they can travel to another dimension to use that planet’s resources to keep Earth alive for a little while longer and maybe even colonize it. The leader’s daughter has been helping with the project for a while and the guy’s son is pulled onto the project so that he can earn his car back after getting it banged up in a street race. Finally, Reed flexes his intellectual muscles and gets his old friend onto the team roster in time for the big experiment. Unfortunately, the heroes got too curious as they messed with the environment of the other dimension (Mostly Dr Doom’s fault) and they each got fantastic powers. Can they use them to save the world now!?

In that regard, the film plays out like you would expect. You definitely don’t want to go into this film expecting a lot of action as it’s more of a slice of life origin adventure. As long as you like the characters and atmosphere, then you’ll be okay. It’s certainly not as good as the MCU backdrop or the ASM series, but a steady improvement over the X-Men series. I was interested the whole time and the characters became likable/charismatic right away so it was fine to just see them talk and hang out even if Reed Richards was really miscast, which can be distracting.

The writing is one of the film’s weaknesses though. The language isn’t terrible, but it still comes at you a little more often than you would like. I always have to shake my head at this since older films never had this problem. I just hope that the English language doesn’t continue to deteriorate or we’re going to need more main characters to be like Mario, rarely talking except for a choice line or two. That being said, I don’t have a problem with the writing in terms of the plot or what happens in the film, just the language aspect.

In terms of the movie dialogue, I’d say that it was reasonable. Nothing spectacular, but nothing bad either. There’s certainly a lot of foreshadowing to get you ready for things that will happen later on in the film. Wondering if Dr Doom is here? The film name drops him right away for long time fans. Fantastic Four even essentially tells you how the film’s going to end with a what if scenario that someone insults Reed with a few times. One can make a comparison to Ant Man here as when Pym explained that nobody’s ever come back from shrinking to the Microverse, that felt like a bit of a dare to the viewers and Scott. Of course, those things tend to really come to you in hindsight as while you’re watching the film, you aren’t typically thinking about them much. I personally prefer to just enjoy the banter and action so I don’t pay too much attention to the hidden meanings of the dialogue unless it’s just that epic of a line.

Reed is the main character of course and he’s a nice guy. I’m just saddened by the fact that the film miscast one of the easiest characters to portray. I feel like almost anyone could do it, but the actor has to be older. It’s why I loved the scene where the film trolled everyone by having Reed pretend that he was older via shape shifting. If he had looked like that the entire film, I would have been thrilled! Reed shows how he is a natural born leader when the going gets tough and we can expect him to continue to use his powers in innovative ways in the sequel. I am glad that Reed has a very tough personality here. In the generic intimidation scene where Dr Doom tries to tell Reed to get away from Sue, Reed just interrupts him to say that he already finished the project ages ago and was going to go take a nap. That was certainly a hype moment and I’m glad that he didn’t just slink away like you would see in most movies.

Ben Grimm’s backstory appeared briefly here and I’m glad that it was so short since his plot could have hurt the film had it gone on any longer. Besides that, I didn’t care to see him as a kid, I wanted to see his superhero form! The Thing costume from the older films was considerably better than this depiction, but I could say the same for every other character so that’s not saying too much. He looks decent although he should have had the traditional pants. I think he gives up on Reed a little too easily and also loses sight of himself without a whole lot of help so he’s not the strongest of the characters in terms of strength of will. He started to destroy a lot of people without hesitation. He’ll likely be more like the happy go lucky Thing we’re used too in future films…hopefully.

Sue was a good heroine and actually defied all of the stereotypical roles as she did not randomly fall in love with Reed for no inexplicable reason. I can’t tell you how glad I was at this as I was expecting a Man of Steel type ending, which would have been very wince worthy. Her subtle insults at Reed were also pretty good like when she tried to ignore him by putting her headphones back on or telling him that his little science experiment almost cost people billions of dollars by taking out the electricity over the east coast. She certainly gave him a tough time and that’s how it should be since he was the new guy on the block. She never overdid it though and they still get along.

Johnny was always going to be an interesting character to watch because of how the film decided to culturally change him. His core personality is essentially intact. He’s still a hot head who has a lot of fun with his powers, he’ll just have slightly different mannerisms and slang words to fit his new character. He’s handled well for the most part and I’m glad that he masters his powers with ease. He doesn’t help with the whole language issue from the film, but none of them really do so it’s not exclusive to him. I did think that it was a little odd how his car almost went out at the beginning of the race since he’s supposed to be a really good mechanic, but I’ll just assume that it was a lucky break for the opponents. I feel like his role was a lot smaller than the other 3, but he’ll likely have his chance to shine next time.

Finally, we have Dr. Doom. You can’t help, but chuckle when you first see him since it seems like the film was intentionally trying to make him look bad. If they were going for a Mandarin level twist, they certainly achieved that! Of course, it would have had more effect if his first scene was his last one. Still, it was neat when he ultimately got his powers, but as a character, he’s not great. He flirts with Sue quite a bit and that always hurt him for me. What I do like about him is the whole anti government personality as that’s always very humorous.

He asks the tough questions and makes the heroes wonder about their mission. After all, it is inevitable that we will wreck that dimension like this one so should we really allow people to go there? He doesn’t think so and that’s why he ultimately grabs his power. He’s certainly a villain, but at least he has a goal that I can sympathize with. If he takes out the Earth, then the other dimension will be safe from those attackers and Doom can live with the world in unity. In this version, that’s how he gets his powers, which are quite impressive.

He’s essentially got telekinesis so he can move rocks around or blow people’s heads up by concentrating. It’s a little overpowered though as the heroes shouldn’t really have a chance against that. The one thing that they have going for them is that they seem to be immune to having their heads blown up. In theory, this is because the ooze that gave them their powers made them immune to that ability or just strengthened their bodies enough to withstand it. The film never gives an explanation, but that makes the most sense. Even then, Dr. Doom probably should have taken the win as he mostly just stood there and allowed the heroes to gain ground. He wouldn’t win many Super Smash battles against Sheik is he stayed on the defensive for so long!

As for the fight scenes, they’re quite good even though they’re short. Reed taking down the gunmen in the forest was pretty epic. It’s too bad that he couldn’t have really fought the Thing as that would have made for a good matchup. At that point in time, The Thing would certainly have the edge, but with a little prep time, Reed could definitely turn the tables. The final fight scene is definitely very epic as the backdrop is like something out of a video game with Dr Doom being the final boss. It’s very short though, which really hurts the fight scene and I would have liked the heroes to have used their powers more. Specifically Human Torch as he was taken out for most of the fight thanks to the rocks at Doom’s disposal. The way that Thing was taken out was a little anticlimactic and I’m calling plot hax on the Invisible Woman, but it just goes to show that they wouldn’t be quite as deadly without Mr Fantastic!

Surprisingly, the film got pretty violent in one action scene. It was like something out of a horror movie as the colors became very dark and the lights started to flicker. Dr. Doom just went around blowing people up without a care in the world and it reminded me of the walls in the Arkham games. I think that could have been toned down a little as it was unnecessary. It was an interesting tribute to the horror films out there, but I’ve never been a fan of them so I could do without that.

Unfortunately, there’s not much of a soundtrack here. That’s too bad as it always adds an extra pop to a film. The visuals were great so mixing that up with some fast paced techno music or something would have been pretty intense. Even some fast music for the dialogue would have been fun. The film just felt strangely silent a lot of the time. It really helps to capture the slice of life feel, but at the expense of that action feel we wanted. Oh yeah, it should be noted that there’s no animal violence here as the anime test trial was successful so the Ape lived. That was probably one of the best moments in the film.

So, time to compare this to the first two films! I do think that the first two win because the actual Fantastic Four as well as Dr Doom were better than their modern versions. I remember the writing being better and I also preferred the costumes/actors. Beating those films was always going to be tough though and I never expected it to top those. Still, Dr Doom can now continue to say that he has been the main villain in every single Fantastic Four film. That series certainly liked him as an opponent.

The ending of the film also gives the franchise a lot of hope. The next film would deal with the Fantastic Four actually being established and finally having their own Baxter Building. It would likely feel more like the comic book version than even the original films. The FF are respected by the government and they’re essentially rich now. There are just so many possibilities! I do think that it was a little unoriginal to steal Avengers Age of Ultron’s final line though. It’s a cool concept, but stealing it just isn’t right.

Overall, Fantastic Four was a solid movie. It’s definitely going to end up being a very underrated one. The score is incredibly low at the moment and now conspiracy theorists can speculate on whether Disney is destroying all other attempts to make non Disney owned Marvel films. If X-Men Apocalypse is critically panned (I could see it getting under a 50 for various reasons, but nowhere near FF level) then things will start to get dicey. Those kind of theories are always pretty epic to hear about, but sometimes it’s just a matter of everyone disliking a film or a big reviewer kicking things off and then the others jump on the train. “Wait…was this hype?” Yes..yes it was. I definitely hope that this movie ends up getting a sequel, but like The Amazing Spiderman, we may have just lost what could have been a beautiful franchise. The bright side is that now Mr. Fantastic can get recast. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, I definitely recommend checking this movie out. It’s got good characters, and some solid action scenes! It’s also fairly short so the pacing is quite fast and it may not be in theaters for long so you’re going to want to hurry and view it before the time is past.

Overall 7/10

Superior Spider Man Volume 1 Versus Review

Posted on August 2, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to delve into the world of the Superior Spiderman once more! The concept was certainly dicey for many people as some did not want a new Spiderman and others were willing to give this one a chance. Peter Parker hadn’t been portrayed very well in a long time so maybe the writers would do a better job with Doc Ock. Well, they definitely know how to write him much more efficiently than Peter Parker, but maybe it’s just because they want to stress how much better he is at the gig than Peter. Peter Parker will always be the true Spiderman, but the run was still pretty enjoyable and this collection gives us some nice guest stars.

The first issue brings in the Avengers, which is a good way to start up a team collection! They’ve been on Spiderman’s tail for quite a while since the hero has seemingly turned rogue. He’s been targeting various heroes so the Avengers arrive to stop him. Is Spiderman really off the deep end or is there something to this whole situation that the Avengers just don’t understand?

You definitely can’t blame the Avengers for thinking that Spiderman has turned given what had been recently happening. This was a fun story and easily the best comic in the collection. Hyperion becoming possessed by the galactic virus was certainly cool even if he probably should have won the battle. Yes, the virus is why Spiderman had seemingly been attacking so many heroes, they had not been in control of their actions at the time. The issue is really just a big battle, which works for me. Spiderman also got a lot of hype since Thor and Hulk were both grabbing onto him to make sure that the hero didn’t get away, but they could feel him straining.

Next up was the two part story with the Scarlet Spider! He has come back to town, but was not expecting a hostile reaction from Spiderman, whom he considered to be a friend. Doc Ock does not like the Scarlet Spider since he basically destroyed him back in the day so they come to blows. Meanwhile, the Jackal is also around and he plans on making more clones while destroying the originals. The Superior Spiderman will have to make a decision to team up with the Scarlet Spider or risk his own destruction. It ends up being a tough choice!

This was the weakest story in the collection. Mainly this was because I felt bad for the Scarlet Spider. Spiderman is incredibly rude to him the whole time and openly tries to murder the guy. Not only is this odd behavior from a so called superhero, but the Scarlet Spider’s at a pretty tough time in his life at that moment. He had been looking for words of encouragement, not insults to push him even further down. It’s sad because he doesn’t even get a happy ending and while I’m sure that things ultimately start to look better for him later on, it’s too bad that he got such a bad deal. The character was nice enough and hopefully Peter is able to patch things up with him later on or the Scarlet Spider finds out about Doc Ock taking control.

The art was also intriguing for this comic. All of the issues had pretty good art, which flowed well for the characters and the fight scenes. Almost at DC’s level to be honest as it was pretty smooth although not quite as good at depicting the character designs. However, part two of this saga had a completely different art style due to it being from a different series. It was going for a cell shaded/CGI kind of look similar to the cutscenes from Shattered Dimensions. It was certainly different. To an extent, I think it looked good in some parts and not as good in others. I certainly prefer the regular art from the other issues, but Spiderman’s design looked nice in this set up.

The next saga introduced a new character named Fulmina. Thanos and his forces had attacked the Earth and the Avengers were busy in space trying to deal with the threat. It was up to Spiderman, Luke Cage, and a lot of the other ground threats to deal with the waves of minions that were attacking the world and Spiderman decided to do a little recruiting when a girl obtained powers. Unfortunately, they ended up corrupting her rather quickly and she decided that a world without technology would be great. Can Spiderman show her the truth?

This comic was fairly good. Perhaps a little anticlimactic and light on action for an Infinity tie in, but it was fun to see Spiderman match wits with Fulmina in her mind. He had a lot of good points about her not wanting to accept that her vision of a prehistoric world would leave Earth vulnerable to attack from aliens and any random villain. I thought Spiderman looked great here, but Fulmina ended up not being a great character. She certainly didn’t end up using her powers well and since an alien invasion was occurring, you’d think that she would prioritize that. She corrected her mistakes in the end though even if it may have come at a heavy price. If she never appears again, she certainly had a very short comic life.

For the most part, the Superior Spiderman is a likable character. You just need to keep in mind that he’s no hero. Spiderman tried to destroy the Scarlet Spider a few times and while he convinces himself that he’s a hero, he just does whatever he wants. His desire to turn over a new leaf is half hearted at best. As an anti-hero/antagonist, Spiderman can be fun to have around with his constant sarcastic remarks about the rest of the characters. He really pities everyone and speaks in a very dramatic style that is a lot of fun to read. The only comic I didn’t like him in was the Scarlet Spider issue, which I already mentioned. Beyond that, he certainly works well as the lead character.

Overall, This was a fun volume of Spectacular Spiderman Team Up! The art is solid and the writing is actually good throughout the collection. It can still be a little sad for Peter fans to see Doc Ock messing up his life, but it’s still a fun concept to play around with. I definitely recommend this one if you want to see some fun stories with a lot of superhero action. There aren’t really any high stakes here so it’s really just about popcorn fun and enjoying the fights, but the adventures move very quickly since they’re all 1-2 issues and sometimes it’s fun to just enjoy some one shot adventures between the big events. With this collection done, it’s time to go back to DC for my next comic review!

Overall 7/10

The Amazing Spider Man The Complete Alien Costume Saga Book 1 Review

Posted on July 26, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to look at another volume which shows Spider Man how he was in the classic days of Spiderman. The Alien Costume Saga is certainly long as it spans two rather large collections. This volume was about 500 pages so it was like reading an essential collection. This is mainly due to the fact that Spider Man was regularly appearing in Marvel Team Up as well as the Peter Parker series so his costume got to appear quite a lot back in those days. He handles himself pretty well for the most part, but the comic is slightly hurt by his relationship with Black Cat in this collection.

The series constantly intermingle so the plot is all over the place. Let’s start with one series at a time as that will make things easier. Marvel Team Up tends to be fairly stand aloneish so let’s lead off with those issues. The first Team Up issue dealt with a case that Daredevil and Spiderman had worked on a while back before Spiderman vanished. Spiderman came back and decided to help, but found out that Daredevil struck a deal with the Kingpin. It’s an intriguing one and it allows the villains to escape so Spiderman questions Daredevil’s heroics. The hero will likely have to deal with that in his own comics. There wasn’t a lot of action in this story, but the guest stars were fun and Black Widow even had a minor role.

Spider Man then met up with Captain Marvel for a two part adventure as he got to go to another world to fight for her freedom along with Star Fox. I definitely still don’t care for that guy, but the space adventure was fun. Spider Man also got to team up with Moon Knight and Iron Man in other issues. Each comic was interesting and I’ve always liked the Marvel Team Up comics. It was a good way for heroes to meet up back in the day before there were guest stars in just about every issue.

The issues in The Spectacular Spider Man mainly dealt with the Black Cat plot. She made a deal with the Kingpin that she doesn’t think Spiderman would approve of so she has kept her new powers a secret from everyone. She can manipulate luck so that’s a very easy power to keep hidden as no one can simply find it out without some kind of complex plan. The drama continues as the heroes fight opponents like the Blob. (The Blob’s ending is actually quite tragic and even Spider Man couldn’t save his friend this time) Black Cat’s power saves Spider Man more than once so the abilities have come in handy.

That being said, Kingpin certainly has an angle here. He sends The Answer to test the heroes and the guy actually manages to get the upper hand on Spiderman and Black Cat. Granted, Spiderman was exhausted and Black Cat hadn’t mastered her abilities yet. Still, I’m really liking The Answer at the moment and he’s definitely an underrated Spiderman villain. I’m looking forward to seeing more of him in volume 2. They just don’t make villains like this one very often. He always talks tough and fights strategically since he’s basically just an average joe. There’s also a two part issue where Spiderman helps Cloak and Dagger out, but that wasn’t the most thrilling adventure.

Finally, we have the stories in the main series. Spider Man fought a whole lot of villains in these stories. The Puma was sent by the Rose to take down Spider Man and it made for a pretty even fight. That guy is definitely no pushover and that’s why they say that he’s never failed a mission yet. Luckily, the guy is honorable so he decides not to finish the Wall Crawler off yet since Spider Man was so weakened. He seems like a good villain and definitely a likable opponent for Spiderman. (I keep alternating between Spider Man and Spiderman, but that’s because both spellings work for me and it’s also tough to just choose one at times)

Due to how Spiderman is constantly fighting, he’s almost always tired, which is too bad. Not to mention that the symbiote also likes to take him for a spin every night so Peter Parker can’t enjoy his sleep. The Rose plots in the background, but he hasn’t really done anything yet. Jack O Lantern and the Red Ghost also make appearances, but they are seriously outmatched against Spiderman in his new attire.

In the final comic, Spiderman finally realizes how deadly the Venom costume is and the Fantastic Four help him get rid of it. Spiderman had to use the old Paper Bag costume to leave, but at least he could be himself again. After all, while the Spiderman part of the plot may have sounded simple, the Parker Luck ensured that there was still a lot of human drama to deal with. For the most part, it’s always handled well in these issues and is typically why Spiderman’s comics were always so interesting. There were always so many plots present and things were always happening.

Peter finally found out that Mary Jane already knew that he was Spiderman. This definitely came as a shock to him since he thought that he had done such a great job of keeping that under wraps. I’m sure that this is a plot which will be more prevalent in future issues. Aunt May is also very upset with Peter at the moment since our daring hero decided to drop out of college. It was definitely a dicey move, but it makes sense since Peter would be late to every class anyway. Of course, explaining that without revealing his identity proved to be very difficult and Aunt May isn’t even on speaking terms with him anymore. In that plot, things continue to go from bad to worse. Robbie is also letting his new position as Editor get to him. Power corrupts after all and he’s slowly drifting away from Peter. Of course, you can’t blame him completely since Peter apparently doesn’t know how to shoot pictures very well. With no formal training, Black Cat is already better than him in that area.

The only plot that I wasn’t a big fan of was the Black Cat one. It’s good that she is actually trying to turn over a new leaf and you will feel bad for her since she went to all the trouble of getting some powers to help Spiderman out, but they also got her into a sticky situation with the Kingpin. I wouldn’t mind this plot at all if it wasn’t for the whole romance between the characters. Black Cat still won’t acknowledge Peter as Spiderman’s alter ego and Peter can’t really take a hint as he keeps on bringing up his human life to her. Naturally, this means that the two of them are constantly disagreeing about this and it gets old fast. Also, Spiderman’s not quite as reserved as you would expect as he and Black Cat are constantly acting like a couple on various rooftops instead of trying to get past the other issues. If this were a modern comic, I’m sure that it would be 100x worse. On the bright side, Peter isn’t cheating on anyone since he’s not together with Mary Jane at the moment, but I still don’t approve of this relationship at the moment since it really doesn’t seem to be working. There’s also a subplot where Spiderman keeps brushing off Harry, but that’s basically the norm between them and I’m sure that this will make Harry turn into the Green Goblin pretty soon!

As you would expect, the art is quite good. It’s very consistent and The Amazing Spider Man has had good art from day one. The art style has naturally switched a little since then and likewise with the other series like Marvel Team Up, but all of the issues look good. This helps for the action scenes as well as the regular dialogue ones. Coupled with the consistently good writing that the series has at its disposal, this is a very solid Spiderman comic. There really aren’t any unlikable characters because they are all written well. Even Black Cat who I am typically not a fan of to say the least isn’t bad here. She feels more like a real character who isn’t one dimensional and can actually be sympathetic as she is trying to solve her problems on her own. She does nearly give away Spiderman’s secret identity on more than one occasion, but she was in danger from The Answer so you can’t blame her for panicking a little. It certainly captures your attention from start to finish and I still miss this series. I think it could be a very long time before I read Book 2, but it’ll be fun to see this saga continued.

I take a lot of shots at Dan Slott’s writing, but reading a comic like this one just helps to fuel that. The Amazing Spider Man was a legendary series that did well for decades and decades. It’s the main reason as to why I like Spider Man so much and it was consistently one of the best comics on the shelf despite not having as many big names or guest stars as other series. That’s because the world around Peter Parker is always interesting and he has such a good supporting group. I’m not sure when the comics started to go downhill, but they were evidently still really good here. It’s too bad that Spiderman isn’t always portrayed like the seasoned veteran that he is in these issues. If he was, I think more people would take him seriously. After all, he traded blows with guys like Thor, Hulk, Juggernaut, and Thanos back in the day. I don’t really see that happening quite as much nowadays although he did really well in Ends of The Earth. I’m hoping that Spiderman will return to his former glory someday, but we may just have to wait a while.

Overall, The Alien Book Saga is a fun restart to the Spiderman series as it takes place immediately after Secret Wars. We even see him leave the portal and save someone right after the cosmic adventure. (Twice thanks to the spinoff series) There are dozens of plots going on for both Peter Parker and Spiderman so the writer really knew what he was going. Some plots can go on for dozens of issues, which definitely makes the readers have to be patient to see where they go. I’m most interested in what The Answer will do from here as he has really been an awesome villain. Spiderman is portrayed well for the most part and the supporting characters are good. With good writing and nice looking art throughout the volume, it’s definitely hard to get much better than this. I definitely recommend the volume to all Spider Man fans and while the main plot of the symbiote suit hasn’t actually gone anywhere yet, there are a lot of other plots going on so it’s fun to see them all converge eventually. The series is never done and I shall be reviewing another Spiderman comic very soon!

Overall 8/10

Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus Review

Posted on July 24, 2015 by dreager1

The Infinity Gauntlet is definitely a famous Marvel arc at this point and some would say that it could be the greatest of all time. Marvel has quite a few big events though like Secret Wars and Civil War so there’s always a lot of competition, but the Infinity Gauntlet is a story that has aged well and is certainly one of Marvel’s best events.

This isn’t just your average trade paperback though. An Omnibus is even longer than an Essential collection and this one is longer than the average Omnibus as they tried to cram in all of the tie ins. This means that the Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus ended up being longer than 2 Essential Collections placed on top of each other. It was around 1200-1400 pages if I recall correctly. Usually that would have taken me forever to finish, but it was a blast reading the classic comics so I read about 400-500 pages in my first batch and then finished it off soon after. Once you start reading, you just won’t want to stop.

The collection is essentially divided into 3 parts. The set up to the Infinity Gauntlet, The Infinity Gauntlet, and the Tie ins that take place during the Infinity Gauntlet as well as afterwards. This way, you can say that you’ve truly read the Infinity Gauntlet since you will have seen what came before it and what came afterwards. This must have the record for the most tie in adventures in the shortest span of canon time. What I mean by that is that the tie ins will turn the gap between 2 panels from seconds into minutes as a character will blink and in that blink, have a big adventure. A good example of that is when Silver Surfer misses the Gauntlet when he charged at Thanos in the final part of the Gauntlet adventure and a whole tie in occurred as he raced back.

As you would expect, the art switches numerous times as we get issues from the Hulk, Spider Man, Infinity Gauntlet, Silver Surfer, and more. Luckily, the art holds up well for just about all of the issues. I can’t think of any issues where I didn’t like the art. The Hulk series was probably a little bigger and bolder than the others which could take some getting used too, but it was still fun and made for some good action scenes. (When the Hulk issues actually had action)

All right, let’s start off with the Infinity Gauntlet plot. I read the first issue a while back so I was familiar with that one, but it’s good to say that I’ve now read the entire epic. The first half is really about the natural disasters that are affecting the planet because of Thanos and then half of the multiverse’s inhabitants are destroyed with a thought. The Avengers realize that they need to do something about this so the heroes who are left decide to attack Thanos once and for all. The big fight is certainly the best part of the arc as everyone runs to Thanos for the big clash.

Without the Gauntlet, Thanos has already proved to be stronger than most, if not all of Marvel’s heroes so this isn’t even a challenge for him. To present the heroes (and readers) with a bit of a fight, Thanos decides not to use the Gauntlet’s full powers against them for a little while. While you know that the heroes are doomed, it is nice to see the action and the heroes do get a few good shots in. They just don’t really deal any damage.

The arc takes a bit of a spin when Nebula grabs the Gauntlet as the whole plot shifts since the heroes have to stop her before she does something that they’ll regret. The cool part of this comic is definitely the part where the cosmic fighters show up to challenge her. Thanos states that he would have been able to defeat them, but they do a pretty good job against her as they attack her on all planes of existence at once so that she will not have enough time to think about what is going on.

It’s easy to root for Nebula here though since she got a really raw deal for most of the event since she was trapped in a death like state where she was forced to live. Once she grabbed Infinite power, you could hardly blame her for wanting to stretch her new muscles. The Living Tribunal claims that it is not his place to meddle in the affairs of the heroes and villains so he doesn’t make a move here. It’s implied that he could probably end the whole situation if he wanted too, but such things are beneath him and he only interferes when he is angered.

Adam Warlock and the Silver Surfer easily have the biggest role in the Gauntlet from the heroes. Adam Warlock essentially has infinite knowledge now that he is back from being virtually dead in the mind gem so he proves to be an ace in the hole for the heroes and Silver Surfer has a lot of experience in dealing with Thanos from his past exploits so he is naturally critical at this point in time. The rest of the heroes are really just there to be a distraction, which Warlock even admits during the latter part of the story.

I’m a fairly big Adam Warlock fan so seeing him take a starring role is always fun. After his death, Warlock is a little more subdued in this arc. He treats most of the fight as a game because he believes that if he took it seriously for a second, he would fall into despair. He’s still a critical factor here and he also gets a little mini arc after the Infinity Gauntlet, which I thought was a lot of fun. the power went to his head for sure and started to get into some epic abstract territory before the cosmic entities decided to weigh in. Sadly, it ended right before the court trial could start. (The trial is incredibly awesome and I wonder which trade paperback it’s included in)

One of the reasons why the Warlock getting unlimited power was so fun was the heroes reaction to this. They had just finished a fairly grueling battle and were exhausted so they were clearly not pleased with having to fight another battle. They half heartedly rushed at Warlock, but he just warped them away. It was a cool twist ending as fans likely didn’t expect something like that to happen. Warlock’s so powerful that the Avengers basically just decided to give up after that.

Mephisto is a major player in this adventure, but I’ve never been a fan of his. He’s not very strong so he relies on trickery, but it typically backfires. Even when Thanos was getting used to being omnipotent, Mephisto couldn’t gather his courage fast enough to grab the Gauntlet. It was a huge missed opportunity for the demon. He’s always around and Mephisto actually helps the heroes out on quite a few occasions so that he could dethrone Thanos, but things never go his way and he spends the whole arc getting pummeled.

Death is a prominent figure here as well, but I definitely don’t care for the character. She never talks and only speaks through her lackey. The lackey talked tough to Thanos so he naturally got the most violent death in the whole collection as Thanos had enough of the guy. The minion was extremely annoying so I wasn’t sad to see him gone. It was unexpectedly intense, but I suppose it was too convey how upset Thanos was. The rest of the collection is fairly tame so it was pretty surprising. If Death could only talk, then I would definitely like her much more, but as it stands, she just looks really arrogant and it doesn’t work since Thanos became much stronger than her. At least Thanos has enough self dignity and honor to not try and control her. He does make a female Thanos who actually defeats Spider Man, which was interesting. I think Spider Man should have won though.

Now let’s look at some of the tie in issues. The Sleepwalker got one and I’m not too familiar with the character, but he seems like a decent fighter. For some reason, he’s treated as a trump card at times, but his strength isn’t incredible. He’s roughly a Daredevil-Spider Man level opponent. He helps out a lot on Earth when Thanos starts to wreck the place and his issue is mostly about him keeping the peace while the other heroes are busy. It’s not a bad tie in even if it sounds a little uneventful. Sometimes it’s nice to see what’s happening while the heroes are gone.

Spider Man gets an issue where..he actually dies. He successfully helped a kid, but it cost him everything. Once he dies, Thanos decides to mess with Spiderman’s soul and tries to give him despair. Spiderman fights back and he has to question what he has been fighting for and if he should continue to live. It’s a very interesting issue and seeing someone cope with their death and wonder what comes next is always cool. In the end, Spider Man didn’t give up hope and managed to reclaim his life. This is yet another example of how Spider Man was written so well back in the day. I shudder to think about how Peter Parker would have acted if this was in the modern days with Slott writing the issue.

Cloak and Dagger got their own tie in issue as well. I’m not sure if you realize this blog readers, but I’ve never been a fan of this team. Dagger’s all right, but I feel like she doesn’t have a whole lot of personality and doesn’t use her abilities to their fullest potential. Cloak is constantly going off the deep end and putting everyone in danger when Dagger is gone for any reason. They’re not terrible, but I probably like Punisher more than them…and I’m not the biggest Punisher fan out there. Ghost Rider and Spider Man got to appear in the issue as well so it was definitely packed with heroes!

Dr Strange gets quite a few stories. They take place during the Infinity Gauntlet at first and then move on to the after effects. The first issue mainly deals with Dr Strange helping Silver Surfer get back to reality after his mind retreats when he crashed into Dr Strange’s room in the first issue of the Gauntlet. It’s exactly what I’m talking about when I mentioned earlier how a tie in could occur at any time. In the span of a page, a whole issue managed to come forth due to this twist of Surfer not ready to come back to reality! It was a fun fight between the two.

After that, Dr Strange got involved with some time travel and fights against other magicians like the Silver Sagger. When Thanos warped all of the heroes away during the first climax of the Infinity Gauntlet, Dr Strange was sent away with Thor and Scarlet Witch to Asgard where they had more adventures. In the final issue, Dr Strange decided to try and defeat Adam Warlock since the infinite power was getting to the wanderer’s head. Dr Strange was incredibly powerful back in the day, but not even he could hope to overpower a wielder of that gauntlet. Still, the attempt was fun and he helped Adam Warlock see reason.

Dr Strange is certainly a fun hero and he’s a character who can be underrated at times. He doesn’t always look it, but his abilities are very potent and he knows thousands of different spells. At this point in time, he could actually fight with the likes of the Silver Surfer and Pre Gauntlet Warlock. Those aren’t weak fighters by any means and Dr Strange could really hold his own with any of them. Strange is also a very wise fighter and never begins a brawl without a plan. The large array of cosmic fighters is yet another reason why the Gauntlet was so fun.

Quasar got some issues as well, but they were apparently forgettable enough that Comicvine didn’t even list them! It’s too bad since they were fun. Quasar got to fight the previous title holders so these other Universe protectors were very tough, but Quasar uses his ingenuity and raw power to take them down. He gets a little bold and heads for Thanos next, but he’s severely outmatched. While Quasar does have the Power Cosmic, he’s never been quite as powerful as the other Cosmic fighters. Still, you should only underestimate him at your own risk as he’s still quite tough. Picture Green Lantern’s energy projection with Cyborg’s strength + Superman’s flight. It’s a very deadly combo.

Quasar was a likable guy and he’s very down to Earth. He has a comfy life on Earth while still keeping up with his cosmic duties. That’s definitely tricky and most cosmic heroes wish they could do something like that. Quasar may not help as much as some of the other big heroes, but he still contributes against Thanos and that’s what counts. He probably makes more of an impact in the fight than most of the Avengers!

The Hulk gets three issues and they show why he was so upset at being called in during the Infinity Gauntlet story. The events slightly blurred together, but things happened in roughly this order. The Abomination had kidnapped his wife and was sad at how everyone looked at him like a monster. Hulk followed him into the sewers and they naturally had a brawl. One thing led to another and Abomination was able to get away thanks to Dr Strange’s untimely summons. Hulk was able to get back and was turned small so he used this opportunity to act as the Abomination’s conscience and convinced the guy to stop what he was doing. The Abomination let his wife go and went back to the shadows, sad at how his fate had treated him.

Hulk then went on to help a town that had been overcome with rage. This is the Hulk who is basically taken over by Bruce Banner and essentially speaks perfect English. He’s not quite as strong of course, but he gets the job done. I can’t say that he looked very good in the Infinity Gauntlet, but that’s mainly because he’s simply outmatched by the other big villains at this point. He may have complained, but he still helped out when it counted.

The Thanos Quest is easily one of the best extras to be included here. It shows how Thanos defeated all of the Infinity Gem guardians and gained the Gauntlet’s power. Each member of the group was extremely powerful so Thanos had to use his wits to win. When physically outmatched, you have to be very cunning to claim victory. These issues would have likely gotten a 9 on their own. In particular, I loved the fights against the speedster who could move at speeds much greater than light and the physical powerhouse who could likely give the Hulk a run for his money. That being said, the fight in the computer game against the game member was a lot of fun as well.

Those issues really captured the intelligence of Thanos. It’s not something that’s played up too often and I don’t expect to see a whole lot of that in the films or TV shows, but it’s one of the reasons why Thanos is so deadly. He essentially has the combat expertise of Batman with the strength of Superman. That’s not even counting his many energy attacks and how well he can use the Gauntlet. While Nebula was overwhelmed on the 3-6 planes of existence, Thanos explains that he could have been able to fight on all of them at once. He simply can’t be stopped and will forever be one of Marvel’s heavy hitters.

Finally, we had the onslaught of Silver Surfer issues. To put them into perspective, just adding all of them together would have been enough to fill 6 of the average trade paperbacks. They cover a whole lot of content and most of them deal with the Thanos plot which is cool. The majority of the issues take place before the Infinity Gauntlet and technically, the Silver Surfer is the first person to learn just how dangerous Thanos is. He follows the Titan across solar systems and many planets, but it’s actually a very depressing journey for the cosmic speedster. Even when he does catch up to Thanos, he is quickly crushed each and every time. He cannot even hope to beat avatars of Thanos.

That being said, the prophecy states that the Silver Surfer is the only threat to Thanos so the Titan is always very cautious with him. In a way, you could say that the Silver Surfer is the main character of the arc and I would completely agree. Almost half of the collection is comprised of Silver Surfer comics and he naturally appears a lot in the main series as well. His plot also connects with Drax’s as they meet up and are forced to team up on many occasions.

They even have a lengthy battle in one of the issues. Silver Surfer is clearly stronger, but Drax is almost possible to destroy so it’s effectively a stalemate. This was back when Silver Surfer was a complete powerhouse and I don’t really see how Thor or Hulk could compete with him at this point in time since Thor was going through one of those phases were it wasn’t the real Thor and the Hulk lost most of his power. The Silver Surfer nearly ended the whole Gauntlet arc on his own if he had not missed the Gauntlet. Thanos didn’t dodge, the Surfer just missed because he was going way too fast. If only he had time to practice before the big play. Still, he kept it close.

As with Warlock, I enjoy the Silver Surfer’s character a lot. He never really wants to fight, but when pushed he can really deliver some spectacular action. It’s admirable that he always tries to find the peaceful way out of a situation, but things just don’t work out that way for him. He doesn’t get to appear very often in the current comics, which is too bad. Hopefully he will get popular again once he starts to appear in the Fantastic Four sequels.

Drax got a really big role, but it just served to remind me that I don’t like Drax in any incarnation. I really don’t like the new Gladiator form of the character, but I am not a huge fan of the old form either. It’s a big improvement of course and he means well, but he’s typically pretty clueless about what’s happening and while he was made to destroy Thanos, he’s severely outmatched the during the entire collection.

As for some of the other characters who appeared, Thor was one who was really hurt by the time at which the comic was written. This was still the era of the fake Thor so he wasn’t very cool or regal like the real thing and his power levels weren’t as impressive as the should have been. Even in his weakened state, the heroes mentioned him as a trump card so I would have really liked to have seen the real deal fight a little. Likewise, this wasn’t the Hulk that we were used to seeing. Cyclops and Scarlet Witch launch a nice two pronged attack on Thanos, which is completely ineffective, but it was fun to see them try. The X-Men were really a total nonfactor here. Vision also tried his best to stop Thanos, but this was during his ghost days so it didn’t go too well. Captain America had his famous moment where he walks up to Thanos and it is a cool scene, but it’s too bad that the fight couldn’t be longer. I suppose that it would have been a lose-lose situation though since I may have had to talk about plot hax a little.

There is plot hax here of course, but that goes without saying so I didn’t even mention it. The only good explanation is that Thanos wanted to lose, which I still find a little iffy since Nebula should have won in that case, but we’ll let it go there. The plot hax is self evident enough that I don’t really need to talk about it much. It was funny to see Thanos just retire on a farm after destroying half of existence. He certainly got off easy eh?

Naturally, all of the cosmic entities minus the Living Tribunal also get a big role. Thanos manages to take down each and every one of them. The Celestials, Galactus,The Elders of the Universe, and many more. Finally, Eternity showed himself since he’s apparently much stronger than all of those (But significantly weaker than the Living Tribunal) but Thanos also takes him down without too much effort as well. It’s a stunning battle with great feats and scenes of action. The cosmic fights alone would be enough to justify this arc as a living legend.

This Omnibus also exposes one of the areas where I actually believe that Marvel surpasses DC. How can this be possible right DC fans!? Well, DC’s never had much of a cosmic scene. We’ve got the Anti Monitor and the Source…but that’s about it. There’s an argument to be made for the Green Lanterns, Darkseid and his armies, as well as the New Gods, but I’m not sure if I really buy it. They just feel more like aliens and other heroes as opposed to cosmic fighters. Take Orion for example. I don’t see any difference between him and a regular hero while fighters like Adam Warlock and Silver Surfer have that dignified cosmic air about them. So, while I do still think that DC has the overall better characters, Marvel has a much better cosmic scene so they can have events like this. DC’s a little more limited when you leave Earth.

That being said, the Marvel cosmic part has weakened a little in recent years. Not literally, but the cosmic events start to be a little more underwhelming when everyone has infinite power. Now we’ve got kids and horned creatures who can rewrite whatever laws they want. When everyone is a cosmic being who can do anything, the whole concept starts to lose its shine. Luckily, most of the cosmic beings who are too overpowered weren’t in Infinity so that one still sounds like it should be a fun remake/reboot of the Infinity Gauntlet. I doubt it can beat the original, but it would still be a lot of fun to see how the new version is. Meanwhile, DC needs to bring back the Angel from the JLA series as he’s one of the only cosmic beings that they’ve got. Putting him and the other Angels up against the Justice League would be a fun arc to read.

Overall, This was a powerful volume from the classic days of Marvel. It’s easy to see how Thanos got so popular after this arc. He was written well and the arc was a blast. Seeing the complete version (Prequels, Sequels, Tie ins, etc) also helps you appreciate the true scope of the story. The actual arc was a little light on action for most of the opening issues, but we got some big brawls as the story went on and you need set up for a large scale arc like this one. The art and writing are consistently good as you would expect and there’s not much in the way of negatives to say about this one. I will say that Nebula’s fate was really sad the whole time as she experienced living death and I could have done without that, but it’s still not as bad as it could have been and one small element won’t really hurt this comic. This could have easily gotten a perfect 10 star rating, but Superman Unbound’s already snagged that one. Still, this is a must read not only for Marvel fans, but DC readers as well. This arc stands as a good model for future arcs to follow or be inspired from so they make the mistakes of other arcs. (Like Fear Itself)

Overall 9/10

Thunderbolts Classic Volume 1 Review

Posted on July 20, 2015 by dreager1

I haven’t read many comics from the Thunderbolts. Actually, this is probably the first collection that I’ve checked out from them. The concept is always interesting as it was a group of villains who banded together to act like heroes. The current group is more of a heroes for hire team while this one is comprised of actual villains who are just trying to trick the world. It’s a fun comic and the concept is sound. It’ll be interesting to see where the series will go from here as the rest of the heroes will likely try to expose them once word gets around.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four were destroyed during the battle of Onslaught so there aren’t many heroes left to help out the average joe against the swarms of villains who are still out there. Baron Zemo decides that he will take advantage of this situation to win the trust of the world and eventually get rich as they give him access to more and more things. It’s an ambitious plan, but he knows that it can be pulled off! That being said, will his team be able to band together and overpower the villains or will they quickly be exposed?

This was during the classic 90’s so the art is big and bold. It works well for these comics and the fight scenes are definitely nice and intense like you would expect them to be. All of the character designs are the iconic ones from the classic days and you can’t help, but feel nostalgic when you see a character like Spider Man who looks so much like how he did in the 90’s TV show.

Speaking of which, he was one of the guest stars in this collection. He gets into a scuffle with the Thunderbolts as he tries to clear his name from a crime. The villains end up helping him out although Baron Zemo is not pleased with this decision. The Beetle took the initiative there since he found out what a nice guy Spider Man was. While Spider Man was losing to the group, he was trying not to hurt them so he underestimated the group. At least he was still holding onto his spider sense and felt like the real Spider Man. Naturally, I would have been happy if he had ended up winning of course.

The other big guest star was the Hulk as he went up against the Thunderbolts. He looked really good as he was totally in control of himself and acted very strategic. He certainly put the team in their place and you actually are rooting for him here since the Thunderbolts aim to destroy him. His partner was a skilled warrior who made for a good ally as well. I wonder what was happening in the Hulk comics at the time. Whatever situation he was going through, it looked like an interesting one and the fight between Hulk and the Thunderbolts was one of the highlights of the collection.

Baron Zemo’s plan was certainly genius as his team came together at a crucial time for the world. People accepted his group rather quickly, but I suppose that they were desperate for new heroes. Zemo’s alter identity was cool as he tried to act like Captain America or Superman. He was a symbol of hope for the world and while he had no fancy super powers, his athletics were enough for him to still deal some damage. He’s the lynchpin of this operation and without him, the whole team would fall apart.

Of course, that’s what Moonstone is gunning for. She seems to want Zemo out of the picture for some reason, possibly just so that she can become leader. Moonstone’s already thrown a few wrenches into the leader’s plans, but Zemo doesn’t suspect anything yet. This is a plot that will definitely become a big focus as the issues go on. While she is not quite as likable as Baron Zemo, she’s still a very interesting villain and is written well.

The Beetle used to be a classic Spiderman villain, but he has moved on since he always lost to the Wallcrawler. He has developed a bond with Screaming Mimi and starts to want to do the right thing after Spiderman helps him out. While his romance subplot is a bit much, it’s handled decently well and isn’t moving too quickly. He’s definitely one of the weaker members of the team, but his tech always keeps him in the fight. Atlas is the heavy hitter of the group and he’s grateful to Baron Zemo for giving him this chance and also saving his life a while back. Atlas seems to want to be a hero right away as he becomes friends with the mayor’s secretary, but he’s definitely going to have to deal with a conflict of interests situation very soon. I’m not a big fan of this guy, but he is more heroic than most of the other members and he can be quite tough as he grows larger and larger.

Screaming Mimi has really changed from when she was a big villain as she’s very timid and soft spoken now. Her vocal powers are pretty original as she can make barriers, fly, and do all kinds of things with them. The Banshee would be proud! I could definitely see her turning good since she doesn’t even act like a villain here, but seems to just follow whatever the group is doing. Hopefully, she will have a stronger personality as the issues go by so she isn’t just led around, but she seems like a nice character.

Jolt was the final member to join the team and she came around at the very end. The character is decent as she is always ready for a fight and she bounces back from bad situations very quickly. That being said, her origin story is rather intense and it’s really my main negative for the collection. For around 5-6 comics, we are constantly reminded of how painful it was for her to gain her powers through the experiments. It’s also just sad as she was kidnapped and nobody even knew or suspected. Luckily, she was able to escape on her own, but it was a rather dark subplot for what was otherwise a very light themed comic. The heroes managed to stop Zola and his experiments, but the villain unfortunately escaped to fight another day.

Finally, we have the Fixer. He’s a tech wiz who acts openly evil and loves just having an excuse to shoot everyone who gets in his way. He still gambles a lot on the side and definitely has no real thoughts of turning good so it will likely be very tough to convert him. He was one of my least favorite members of the team and actually, he was my least favorite member. He didn’t really add anything to the team dynamic and we already had the arrogant character in the form of Baron Zemo.

One of the more interesting plots here is about how the villains start to like being regarded as heroes and even help out a little when it’s not necessary. It’s safe to say that The Beetle is the first character to start thinking about being a hero. Atlas and Screaming Mimi start to get on board pretty quickly as well. Baron Zemo and Moonstone typically have the original goal in mind, but if the Fixer were to also start liking the hero gig, they may have to follow suit. As Moonstone and Zemo are the two biggest villains, it’s hard to see them turning over to the side of heroes so it may be time for a new leader for the group. Hopefully the members will make the right call and based on some of the covers for future volumes, at least some of them might. The comic series definitely ran for quite a while.

Another fun part of the collection was when the Thunderbolts battled the Masters of Evil. The fun part is that the Thunderbolts technically are the Masters of Evil so Baron Zemo is outraged at the fact that someone is copying his group. The two groups clash on two occasions, but we still don’t know who the new leader of the group is. Either way, it was a lot of fun to see the two groups fight each other and it was actually pretty evenly matched. Both groups have some talented fighters. That being said, in defeating the group, Zemo essentially gave one villain a hint as to what his secret identity was, which could come back to haunt him later.

For now, the Thundebrolts are mainly focused on earning a reputation so the series is essentially a villain of the weak story for now. I actually like this approach, but I’m sure that the plot will really start to move once the mayor gives them more privileges. SHIELD still doesn’t trust the Thunderbolts and with good reason, but I have a feeling that the Thunderbolts will be given too much power very quickly. That’s when they will have to decide if they want to be heroes or villains!

The final issues also show us each character’s origin story and then how they came together. I suppose that this was due to happen at some point. I enjoyed seeing the team come together as Baron Zemo definitely handles it in a different way than someone like Cyclops or Captain America would. The origin stories were also decent and Baron Zemo’s got to show us how the original Zemo handled his affairs. The apple didn’t fall very far from the tree in this case. Zemo’s reaction to Captain America dying against Onslaught was pretty humorous as we don’t get to see what villains think of the news too often.

Overall, Thunderbolts is a fun concept and this collection was a nice read. You’ll be able to blast through it thanks to the clear art style. The Avengers and other heroes are not around, but we still got some guest stars like Spider Man and the Hulk. The Black Widow also gets a cameo to a guest star as her role is small enough to be counted as either one. She gets some pretty good lines and hints that she knows what the Thunderbolts are scheming and will put a stop to it. Nothing like a few threats between “heroes” right? There’s a lot of action here and watching villains take down other villains is pretty rewarding. It’s hard to say where the plot will go from here so you’ll want to stick around for the next volume. The only thing that holds this comic back is Jolt’s backstory and at least it’s just mentioned and not shown. I still recommend this comic if you’re looking for some fun fights and good dialogue.

Overall 6/10

Ant Man Review

Posted on July 18, 2015 by dreager1

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has followed a strong formula for each of its films, which has resulted in none of them actually being bad. They’ve all been consistently good up til now and I had some decently high hopes for Ant Man. Unfortunately, I forgot that the concept of Ant Man may have doomed it from the start and every film series has to jump the shark eventually. This one proved to be Marvel’s first big miss! (For this continuity)

Scott is a man who has made some wrong choices. He chose to become a cat burgler and spent a lot of time in jail. He finally gets out, but realizes that nobody will hire him so he cracks and decides to become a criminal again. An old man who is called Mr. Pym gives Scott an offer. Scott can steal something for him or go back to jail. Scott uses the get out of jail free card and undergoes a training regime. Now that he is able to shrink and talk to Ants, nobody can stop him right? The ultimate battle against evil has now begun!

Ignoring the crippling negative that I will dive into soon, the film handled itself fairly well. As I mentioned, the MCU has a certain tone/atmosphere that is used for all of the films (Not counting The Incredible Hulk…another reason why that one is only barely in the MCU for me) and it works quite well for Ant-Man. We’ll get a serious spy scene, then a comedy moment, then a serious scene, comedy moment. It’s essentially a constant stream of back and forth and you typically will not go 2-3 minutes without an epic one liner or a burn from one of the characters. It’s one of the reasons why the MCU films have typically been crushing the competition.

It doesn’t take itself too seriously while still giving us good battles. I’d say that phase 2 has actually ramped up the comedy angle as the one liners seem more frequent, but it could be a coincidence. The action has also been ramped up so it could just be the “bigger is better” effect like what Slayers did with Next. Compare Avengers to Avengers 2, Cap to Cap 2, and Iron Man 3 to Iron Man 1. The sequels all had more action (The first is debatable I suppose) and more comedy moments. As long as the writing is good, this formula should always work quite well. Even if some of the jokes don’t work, there are enough of them that the good ones should overshadow the bad ones. Likewise, if you have a lot of fight scenes in a film, there should be at least one or two that you will like.

The MCU’s fights are also a step ahead of the other Marvel companies with the exception of ASM2. Ant Man’s battle against Yellow Jacket is pretty fun. Antman is certainly outmatched and probably should have lost, but it’s cool to see him dodging lasers and keeping up the intensity. Both fighters are always on the move and trying to keep the other off balance. The special effects seen here will definitely age well and the music while in the brief case was pretty epic.

Ant Man also likes to show us just how tiny the fighters are by showing off the outside world during the fights. During these moments, the music will stop and the real world will only have slight movement. This does rage a possible plot hole of Ant Man’s strength though. It’s shown that he still has his human sized strength while he’s tiny and he uses it quite often to take on the villains. So, why does Thomas barely move when the characters hit him at full strength in one scene? In the human world, we just see Thomas get lifted slightly as he bumps into the window. If Ant Man had his full human sized strength, it should have easily shattered the glass.

That’s only a mild thing though. Ant Man’s soundtrack is naturally good. The very first scene has a classic theme that you will remember from most of the other MCU titles with SHIELD and Ant Man introduces some other themes to the franchise. I’d say that just about all of them are good and especially the main “Ant Man” theme. You’ll know it when you see it. Having a good soundtrack is the first step to being a good movie. The next is having good writing.

Ant Man’s writing is solid for the most part. I say “for the most part” because it’s still not quite as good as the average MCU title. For one thing, I found Ant Man’s friends to be a little sad. They’re essentially all stereotypes. It’s used for comedy though and they each have their moments I suppose, but they felt like the characters that you would see in a mainstream comedy title like Pitch Perfect or Tower Heist and those are the characters that I can never like. The main friend is always making crude comments when talking about how he heard his stories and they are pretty off putting. The other two friends are really just there to use slang and try to be funny, which doesn’t work quite as well as the natural jokes that flow from Scott and the villains. An example of a scene that was funny was the Baskin Robbins moment. Those scenes I could get behind and I liked the manager a lot as he knew when to talk off the record as well as on it. Ant Man also felt like it had more language than I would have expected. The characters just can’t keep themselves in line so they constantly panic and let out some colorful words. So, I feel like that’s a bit of a writing issue.

Let’s go into the characters. Scott Lang is the main guy of course and he’s not bad. He’s essentially your average film protagonist who wants to do the right thing, but isn’t sure how to do that. I do think that he gave up and went back to a life of crime rather quickly, but we are led to believe that he looked for jobs for quite a while. A quick montage of that would have been good though. Still, in the end, he learns the values of teamwork and how to be a responsible hero. He really wants to keep his bond with his daughter and gets her a pretty nice gift. He’s certainly a good parent and I do like the character overall.

One plot element at the end of the film does hurt him a little though. There is a very forced romance between him and Hope. As with the average film, they meet and basically fall in love in the span of a few days. It’s just sad that the heroes have to be so predictable like this. At least it’s just one scene, but it’s still something that was not needed at all and was just added because it’s essentially expected at this point.

Otherwise, Hope makes for a good heroine. She can fight, which is always a good thing and she whips Scott into shape right away. She’s better at controlling the ants and is also a better hand to hand fighter, but she had quite a lot of prep time when compared to Scott. You’d think that Scott would have learned some more hand to hand in jail, but I guess he became buddies with the others too quickly. Hope easily outclasses Pepper, Jane, Betty, and Peggy as far as the MCU heroines go. Mr. Pym is another supporting character and he was fairly likable. It was good to see him take a nice shot at the government agent who stepped out of line and he is definitely very active for an old guy. This is not someone who plans to quietly retire from the front lines and I’m sure that he will have a decent role in the sequel. Hopefully he goes back to the mini world himself!

As for the main villain, he’s decently good. He seemed to flirt with Hope a little, which is generic villain 101 for how to not be taken seriously, but Yellowjacket was all right aside from that. You really can’t expect much from him in terms of character development as he’s meant to be a really generic villain, but he fits the bill and I definitely didn’t mind him as the antagonist. The Yellow Jacket suit is definitely really cool and seeing it again someday would be fun.

The film ends with some loose ends to be continued in the sequel or other MCU films. I’m not sure if I’m crazy about the villain who may be around for the sequel since we’ve done this dance so many times already, but we’ll see how it goes. There are two after credit scenes so you’ll want to check them out first. The first one is more of a traditional after credits scene in the sense that it would work for just about any film and doesn’t rely on the large continuity. It’s a good scene. The second one is some build up for the MCU. Time to start speculating about what this will all mean. It was cool to see the “Ant Man will return” sign at the end for sure.

One thing that I enjoyed about the film was that it didn’t act like everyone was gone. In a lot of comics, heroes will conveniently be out of town or asleep so that they don’t have to appear. This film doesn’t go that far and we actually get our first big meta human fight between heroes. It’s definitely neat and I agree with the outcome. There’s really no way that the hero should have lost this battle and as far as the victory went, I felt like it could have been even easier. Not saying that his opponent was a pushover….but he wouldn’t be much of a challenge either.

Sounds like a fun film so far right? I enjoyed the action and the comedy. Ant Man’s characters were pretty good for the most part, the effects were a lot of fun, and the film’s pacing was good. The movie always moved very quickly and I certainly wasn’t bored. The friends may have been a little sad at times and the writing wasn’t great, but the film could hold its own. Unfortunately, that’s where the negative comes in. See, this is a film called Ant Man so you can expect a lot of ants right? That’s the problem.

There is a lot of animal violence here and it’s really sad. The scenes are unnecessary and just there for poor shock value. Again, this is just a result of terrible writing and someone needs to get some new staff for the sequel. Goats already have a reputation of dying in big films like Jurassic Park, we didn’t need another one to die here. As soon as the goat appeared, I knew that it was game over. The way that he died was also very gross. A human died this way as well and it wasn’t sad like the Goat’s death, but it was still gross. This was a line that the film didn’t need to cross.

The Ants also die throughout the film. Scott clearly has no regard for their lives except for a select few. One of the ants gets a very emotional death while the others are typically taken down in the background. I knew that the ants should have all been mechanical. That would have solved the film’s biggest problem right from the start. As it is, this negative really destroyed the film just like with Jurassic World. (A film very similar to this one in many respects) Hopefully the sequel will use robots although I doubt that we’ll see a sequel for a very long time.

Ant Man also takes itself a little too seriously during one moment where Pym tells Hope about what happened to her mother. Scott quickly whips out another joke to stop the tension, but I felt like it almost could have broken them out of their slump sooner or they could have had Hope take the news a little better. That’s really the only scene where this happens though as the rest of the film is typically moving too fast for this to be an issue.

Hmmm, any more things to touch on here? The dialogue effect for the friend’s stories were good as every character had the same voice. If not for some of the terrible lines here, these were definitely some of the best jokes in the film. The guy will remind you of Sam from the Transformers Trilogy as they both have a similar style of speaking and maybe even similar personalities, but different enough that you would never mix them up. I think I’ve hit on most of the big points for the film here.

Overall, Get ready for some name drops, cameos, and world building as the film goes on. Now that the MCU is such a big franchise, it has to keep on growing to keep the audience in the loop and ready for some action. The film is still a lot of fun and has a lot of replay value due to its nature. On a critical level though, I still can’t recommend the title because of the very excessive animal violence. The writing and side characters can also be a bit dicey, but without the animal violence, we’d still be looking at a 7 star film here. If you are prepared for animal violence then you should see this film. If not, you really won’t be missing anything so you can still just skip to Avengers 3 and prepare yourself for the powers of the planet busters. Now, will Marvel be able to bounce back from this? I’m confident that they can as Civil War should be epic. From here on out, the only MCU film that you should be worried for is probably Inhumans and that one should still be good. The real question is, can Ant Man defeat the upcoming blockbusters like Pixels, Mission Impossible and Spectre? It’s going to be tough, but the Ant Man is used to being the underdog so he’s ready for action.

Overall 4/10

Fantastic Four Volume 4 The End Is Fourever Review

Posted on July 12, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to look at the end of an era for the Fantastic Four. They’ve had some really great runs over the years like the Hickman epic and the classic run. A lot of things have happened over the years and now the plots can all wrap up. The collection ends on a high note and things wrap up nicely without feeling forced or rushed. We even get some fun guest stars!

The Fantastic Four has been split apart recently. The kids were kidnapped by the Wizard, Mr Fantastic was kidnapped by a guy who wants to be known as the Peace Man or something like that. The Human Torch doesn’t have his powers anymore and the Thing has just barely gotten away from prison. As you can see, they aren’t really ready to stop a worldwide invasion by aliens, but they decide to give it a whirl anyway. They’ve made plenty of friends over the years and they’ll need all of them if they want to win this battle.

This collection is essentially nonstop action, which is really rare for the Fantastic Four series. The alien insects are everywhere so we get cameos from several Avengers. The Avengers don’t look so good once again, but it’s mainly SHIELD that starts things off on a rocky note as they decide to attack the Hulk. Everyone eventually gets over the mix-up, but it did give us a nice excuse for a quick fight scene, which is always a solid way to kick things off. The Fantastic Four’s group definitely would have won had the battle kept going since they had the Hulk on their side and Invisible Woman could have handled the rest of the group.

The art is quite good as you would expect from the Fantastic Four series. The fight scenes are vibrant and colorful while the dialogue scenes flow naturally. This is certainly an easy comic to read as a result and I had a fun time blasting through it. The final issues also celebrate its 75th anniversary so we get a few short stories and one issue where we see what all of the other heroes were doing when the Fantastic Four first formed. That was fun and there were certainly a lot of guest stars so the comic really tried not to leave anyone out.

The comic also had some really good writing and it was an interesting read from start to finish. Mr Fantastic got his props as he was able to foil most of the villain’s plan on his own and also broke free from the trap. He is Mr Fantastic after all and while some of Marvel’s other geniuses like Tony Stark typically get more publicity, I’d consider Mr Fantastic to easily be the smartest man in the Marvel Universe. I wouldn’t take anyone against him in a battle of wits and he’s still my favorite member of the Fantastic Four. He was portrayed perfectly here!

The Thing looked good and he was certainly willing to jump into the fray right away. He’s a character who’s had his ups and downs, but I’m glad to say that this would be more of an up for him. The Human Torch looks nice and heroic. The comic still plays up his flirty side a bit, which is regrettable, but he doesn’t go totally overboard in the past so the writer did a decent job with him compared to past incarnations. Invisible Woman continues to show why she is a threat in any fight since her force abilities are really effective against all fighters. There’s a twist about why she has been using her powers more freely lately, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that they are still her powers. Once she gets used to them a little more, she’ll be back to being a big threat in the Marvel universe.

The villains aren’t very high profile, but they’re not bad either. I’ve never been much of a fan of the Psycho Man, but his abilities are decent I suppose. I much preferred the peace guy who did escape so that’ll be a plot to delve into in the future I suppose. He’s quite smart even though he was duped by one of the other villains. I actually liked him as a villain since he seems to be a good match for Mr. Fantastic.

The subplot with the kids wasn’t bad as the kid made the right call and showed everyone that he’s not a true villain deep down. I don’t think that he should have played along from the beginning to be honest, but it all worked out in the end. The plot was not quite as interesting as any of the others, but at least it gave the kids some closure so maybe they won’t be needed in future arcs. I still don’t really like how Valeria is portrayed to be as smart, if not smarter than Mr Fantastic. That’s still a little iffy if you ask me.

I do appreciate the fact that the comic mentions why most of the Avengers aren’t around to help. Since the invasion is taking place across the whole planet, they have to protect the other countries that have less superheroes. This is a great reason for them not being around and I wish that more comics would acknowledge this. New York has all of the big threats so I’m glad that some stuck around, but the other countries have far less superheroes so they could definitely use the help.

After the nonstop action for most of the collection, I didn’t mind the short stories at the end. The camping story with Mr Fantastic and Valeria was fun and we got to see that Mr Fantastic did have fun enjoying nature when he wasn’t busy inventing things. The Thing’s was a little sad for him with the ending, but it shows that he’s always ready to help. I’m not sure if short stories would have worked as well if they had been the whole collection, but they still would have been fun to read in a different way when compared to the action. Both techniques work when the writing is good enough. The fact that we had fake versions of the Avengers was also awesome since it gave us an excuse to see Thor and Iron Man take on the Fantastic Four. Scarlet Witch even fights her doppleganger. The villains aren’t really a threat here and it’s really just to show you all of the friends that the Fantastic Four have made over the years. Trust me, they’ve made quite a lot of them!

Overall, This was a really fun volume. Whether you’ve read the previous ones or not, it’s easy to jump right into the action. A lot of things happened to set up the situation, but it’s easy to understand what the situation is and what the heroes have to do to stop the invasion. It’s too bad that most of the Avengers are busy, but the Fantastic Four are always more than a match for any adversary. The team is essentially a blank slate now so they can really do whatever they feel like doing now. It’s a great way to hand over the comic to a new creative team since there are no big subplots unfolding at the moment. This was a good run and an epic end to it so I recommend this collection to all Marvel fans.

Overall 8/10

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