Marvel Superheroes
Welcome to the Marvel Cinematic and Comic Universe, exploring all things superhero and villain. Excelsior!
Road to the X-Men/Inhuman War (Part 1)
In this post, we are going to be going over the first issue of Death of X by Jeff Lemire and Charles Soule, which is awesome because I love both of their writing. Death of X is a four-issue mini-series that leads up to the crossover event called Inhumans vs. X-Men where Mutants and Inhumans go to war with each other. After DoX and IvX, we go into X-Men Prime and Inhumans Prime, which re-shapes the Inhuman/X-Men status quo in the Marvel Universe.
By Just a guy8 years ago in Geeks
My First Ever Walkout: 'Ant-Man and the Wasp'
(Spoiler Alert) I walked out of Ant-Man and the Wasp. I've never walked out of a film before. I'm so surprised at myself I had to write an article to process what I experienced and why I had to leave. The following factors made up the foundation of the film and they grated on me constantly to the extent that I decided to leave.
By Matt Richards8 years ago in Geeks
Summary and Review of 'The Sentry #1'
Some people consider The Sentry to be Marvel's Superman, but I feel like he is more comparable to Shazam from DC Comics. I know next to nothing about the Sentry but I do know enough to give you a basic rundown of who his character is and some other supporting characters in The Sentry's mythos. Instead of going over a brief or recent history of the character, I think I know little enough about him that I can The Sentry's origin as we go through the first issue.
By Just a guy8 years ago in Geeks
Multiple Man and His Multiple Men!
I've never taken the time to get to know who Multiple Man is in the Marvel Universe, so I thought I would give this title by Matt Rosenberg a shot—and man is this title hilarious. From my experience, many solo titles involving smaller characters just don't work for some reason. It could be that the writers do not know what to do with the character or how to write them. The only other solo title that I'm thinking of checking out is the Sentry run by Jeff Lemire. Mostly because it's Jeff Lemire and he has written so awesome stories like the first 25 issues of the current Old Man Logan story line. I really recommend that you check out that Old Man Logan run and the first two issues of Multiple Man, which are out now.
By Just a guy8 years ago in Geeks
From 'Pepper' to 'Peggy': Influence of Women Power in the MCU
For far too long, the word "superheroes" have gone up shoulder-to-shoulder with men, leaving the women out of the equation. Heroes have been visualized as caped and suited men and until today, people fail to grasp the meaning of being a "hero." Being a hero doesn’t necessarily signify capes or superhuman strength; it’s what lies within a person. It’s the heart that counts. While the men have snatched the limelight in the MCU so far, it’s important to focus on the other gender for a while. Let’s look at some of the important contributions in the MCU from the ladies.
By Rik Singha8 years ago in Geeks
The X-Men Are in the MCU… But What About Magneto?
The news that Disney are finally acquiring 20th Century Fox has opened up possibilities that many of MCU fans thought they could only dream of. Properties such as the X-Men, X-Force, New Mutants, Wolverine, Deadpool, the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer, the Savage Land, the Starjammers and the Shi’ar are all coming home and could potentially interact with your favourite Avengers on screen. However, one character’s transition from the Fox-verse may be a tad problematic. I’m talking of course, about the X-Men’s greatest foe, the Master of Magnetism: Magneto.
By Marco Cardoni8 years ago in Geeks
A Review of 'Weapon X #1-20'
I've managed to catch up to Greg Pak's run on Weapon X that features the Batch H storyline and a crossover with Totally Awesome Hulk, which is also written by Greg Pak. Many fans seem to not like Pak's take on some of the characters like Sabretooth. Many felt that Sabretooth was acting out of character. I felt that the first two to three story arcs were not my favorite, but I did enjoy reading them nonetheless. The Weapon X team consists of Old Man Logan, Sabretooth (Victor Creed), Warpath (James Proudstar), Lady Deathstrike, and Domino. Having Old Man Logan, who we will now refer to as Logan, on a team with Sabretooth (basically his arch-nemesis) and Lady Deathstrike (another one of Wolverine's prominent villains) is a dream come true for me. The roster is definitely what caught my attention in the first place. I will be honest, I like Greg Pak's writing style, but I felt that it didn't match the story. It could be that Pak has written the Hulk or Hulk-related titles over the last few years and didn't really know how to write the characters in Weapon X? I do, however, feel as the title reached its more recent issues, it began to improve quite a lot. Another factor that kept me reading was the possible chaos that would result from the story.
By Just a guy8 years ago in Geeks
The Marvel Cinematic Universe 80s Style...Part One!
It's January 2nd, 1984 and Terms of Endearment is the number one movie at the US Box Office. Return of the Jedi was the biggest movie of the last year and the rest of the year will see movies like Ghostbusters, The Terminator,Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom & Beverly Hills Cop hit theaters.
By Rob Taylor8 years ago in Geeks
Another 10 Properties Marvel Can Turn into Great Franchises. Top Story - July 2018.
Back on July 4, I submitted a list of what I believed to be the top ten Marvel properties that Marvel Studios could turn into successful franchises. Since that was my most successful article, I decided to make a sequel to it. Now, like most sequels, this article was not asked for, nor was it necessarily wanted, and it probably won’t be as good as the original article, but I’m making it anyway. This time, I’ve included some characters associated with the Fantastic Four and X-Men, but like last time, I didn’t add them specifically to the list, given the inevitability that we’ll see them enter the MCU as new franchises. And with that, I present you with number 10:
By Zack Krafsig8 years ago in Geeks
Steve Ditko's Vision of Eternity in Dr. Strange
Steve Ditko will be remembered most for co-creating Spider-Man and Dr. Strange with Stan Lee (and may deserve more of the credit than Lee, depending on who you ask). He drew some of the most loved Spider-Man stories but some of the absolute best Dr. Strange stories. That's rare for creators—most later artists try to one-up the creator and many succeed, but only with Dr. Strange do all later creators merely present inferior imitations of Ditko. This is perhaps the biggest difference between Ditko's legacy on Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. Spider-Man became the face of Marvel, but Dr. Strange has remained a relatively obscure specialty title about which you might say, "Spider-Man is great standard superhero stuff, but if you want a real advanced, mind-blowing experience, you have to check out Ditko's Dr. Strange." Since Ditko perfected it right out of the gate, I'm tempted to say Ditko ruined Dr. Strange by being so good, but I don't want to belittle the other great artists who worked on the title. Gene Colan and Frank Bruner are iconic; Paul Smith, Michael Golden, Kevin Nowlan, P. Craig Russell, and Chris Warner are all magnificent; Chris Bachalo and Peter Gross are two of my personal favorites—the list goes on and on. I love most of the artists who have worked on the title, but I think even they would admit they're merely shadows of Ditko.
By F. Simon Grant8 years ago in Geeks
The Wasp Who Never Laughs
The most unbelievable and dream-disrupting moment in Ant-Man and the Wasp is when Hope Van Dyne, in her first costumed appearance as the Wasp, delivers a hurrincanrana to some nameless villain minion. Far more than all the growing and shrinking gimmicks, far more than the moment when characters breath heavily in sub-atomic space through their lungs which are smaller than oxygen molecules, this hurricanrana moment made me want to say, "Are you kidding me?" My response to this small moment mirrors my response to a lot of moments in the MCU: I forgive it because it's a cool moment and looks awesome while at the same time the hardcore comic book nerd in me has to say, "Are you kidding me?" Black Widow performed the exact same move in her first appearance in Iron Man 2. Again, it didn't bother me too much when Black Widow did it because it is a cool-looking move, but imagine Evangeline Lilly didn't have a mask and had long red hair, how would you distinguish her from Black Widow (other than a few wacky shrinking tricks here and there)? Honestly, as a wrestling fan, I always mark out a little when I see a hurricanrana in a movie, but it's a silly move for a trained combatant to employ: to throw oneself crotch-first at an opponent just to flip him upside down. It seems slightly less efficient than using one's arms (or any part of the body other than the crotch) to accomplish the same thing. Surely, the silly choice in attack maneuvers is rooted in remnants of a sexist Hollywood where it made sense, for example, for Xenia Onatopp to kill people with her thighs in Goldeneye, but it may never be a problem if Black Widow was the only one who did it for that one second in that one movie. Maybe she was a big fan of Lucha Libre, and she's so cocky she thinks she can get away with luchador moves in the middle of a mortal battle with gun-toting enemies. This might be a compelling and unique part of her character except we barely know anything about her other than some "red in [her] ledger" which nobody has bothered to explain or develop. Making Black Widow the most badass character in most movies seems to be a bulwark against feminist criticism, but giving her a few unique likes and dislikes would have been just as effective. We know she has an eye-rolling intolerance of Tony Stark's man-child silliness, but so does Pepper Potts. In Iron Man 2, what makes her anything more than the Pepper Potts who fights? I know she occupied some of the most hated parts of Age of Ultron, Natasha's romance with Bruce or the revelation of her infertility, but these came off more like wrongheaded, awkward attempts to make her a unique, fleshed-out character, and they rolled her back to blandness in subsequent incarnations as, perhaps, a response to the feminist backlash. Sure, there were so many other things that could've made her unique other than infertility and romance, maybe the whole red ledger business could have finally been a thing, but their response was to make her less of a character instead of risking more awkwardness. What is her journey in Infinity War other than punching a hundred more monsters? The Wasp's indistinctiveness seems to be a manifestation of the mistaken belief that this one early version of Black Widow is the only female character who won't garner feminist backlash.
By F. Simon Grant8 years ago in Geeks
'Captain America #1' Review and Analysis
I will be the first to admit, when it was announced that Ta-Nehisi Coates would relaunch the Star-Spangled Avenger with Captain America #1, I was really surprised. I had long admired Coates’ work on Black Panther, and I’m very much enjoying the current “Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda” storyline he’s writing, I just hadn’t thought he’d want to write any title other than Black Panther. I’m very glad he ended up branching out, however, because I absolutely loved the first issue of this new story. This is a story about the international and domestic ramifications of Hydra’s US takeover. On the domestic front, the audience sees that Captain America’s legacy has been tarnished, perhaps beyond repair. And not only has America lost faith in Cap, but Cap’s lost faith in America. America has forgot the values she was built on and allowed Hydra (led by a Hydra manipulated cosmic cube clone of Cap) to so easily take control. This first issue, beautifully drawn by Leinil Francis Yu (like everything he draws), sees Cap fighting members of the Nuke Army, enhanced soldiers with the American flag tattooed on their faces and twisted views on America, before being told to stand down by the U.S. government. Soon after, Cap has decided, even though he’s not officially sanctioned anymore, to find out who has poisoned his country, which will have him face his toughest enemy yet. The international consequences show us a potentially deadlier threat, with anti-American sentiments being spread throughout Russia under the guise of these sentiments being anti-Hydra.
By Zack Krafsig8 years ago in Geeks
