John42

June 17, 2013 4:41 pm I take issue with the statement that enjoyment of the movie is determined by sacred-cow treatment and that negative reactions will come mostly from die-hard fans. 56% on rotten tomatoes does not come from fan-rage alone.

June 17, 2013 10:46 am Morrison once asked (paraphrase) "what would Christianity be like if god put Jesus on a rocket to escape the destruction of heaven?"

May 23, 2013 1:50 am Great review. The pace was amazing. I really felt like I was being pulled along rhythmically, almost like my eyes were shifting from panel to panel to a metronome. Even the script excerpts in the back had a pace, while still giving Samnee a ton of freedom. It’s like Waid sets the tempo and Samnee’s the drummer who figures out which beats to play. These guys have entered the Morrison/Quitely, Brubaker/Phillips more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts club.

May 13, 2013 4:17 pm This was laugh-out-loud funny, nicely done. For me it's not "it's comics", it's "it's not real" (Morrison has a nice passage on this in Supergods). I can take this just like I can take Romeo and Juliet falling in love in five seconds or Bruce Wayne wouldn't have died a month into the whole batman thing. It's not about holding up a mirror to reality so much as it's about holding up a mirror to our inner, emotional lives. We all feel like there's greatness inside us that the world doesn't see and all that. Realistically, yes, batman is stupid. Dressing up like a bat is very silly. As a personification of things we feel and dream, he's awesome.

April 8, 2013 3:23 pm The Thanos to Godzilla transition was apt. Josh talked about how certain marvel villains work better as beyond-good-and-evil forces of nature. Then Paul talked about the battle to get Godzilla to notice you. The first galactus story is one of the great existentialist stories. It's truly cosmic in its perspective. The scale of the conflict is such that the question is not so much "can we win?" as it is "do we matter?" Are we significant in the face of the universe (marvel cosmic) or the bomb (Godzilla)?

April 8, 2013 2:40 pm Brilliant. This article helped me realize why I was liking AoU so much and articulated that realization way better than I could on my own. That's what criticism should do, which made the Ebert tribute so fitting. Reviewing something since-Ebert is like writing a song since-Beatles: you might not not be consciously thinking about them, but at this point the influence is osmotic. I have to believe this guy's life and work made a huge impact on the ifanbase. We all have critical impulses, or we wouldn't be here, right? We'd be content just reading our stack and moving on with life. But no, we wanna talk about them. Ebert played a huge part in developing the language we use to speak and write and think critically and thoughtfully about art. This article speaks that language and carries on that tradition.

March 5, 2013 8:55 pm I'd call that an awesomer world we live in

March 4, 2013 7:59 pm Looking at this picture I thought they brought back the red underwear as a thong.

February 28, 2013 11:01 pm Oh and your wolverine and doop point is well taken. I'd point to wolverine and the x-men as the perfect example of how serious and silly can happen at the same time.

February 28, 2013 10:57 pm Totally agree that Tyson's task is way more important than Johns'. And Tyson is awesome, I wouldn't be so hard on him if I didn't be so hard on him if I didn't love him. I'm probably just holding him up to the impossibly high Carl Sagan standard. The thing about Sagan is that he wasn't trying to sound cool, he was just being himself and that happened to be really really cool. Johns and Tyson sometimes feel like they're trying too hard; like they're not being themselves; like they're quelling their passion. They're being cool when they should be burning.