Invasionforce

August 23, 2013 7:26 am Why are people down on Army Hammer? He was excellent in "The Social Network" and that movie about J. Edgar Hoover with Leonardo DiCaprio. Hammer is also good looking, and more age appropriate for the role of Batman.

August 23, 2013 7:20 am Ben Affleck will probably do a competent job, but there are so many actors who would have been better suited. It's not his fault, but Affleck is too old for the role. He's 41! What kind of shape will he be in if he plays the role for more than one film? Affleck has always been rather borderline leading man material, given his looks. That big, lantern jaw, and that flat face make him no one's idea of "sexiest man alive." And Affleck is hardly a film savant. "Argo" was a solid, entertaining thriller. The only reason it won an Oscar was because the directors of the better movies last year had already won. And don't get me started on how Tony Kushner was robbed of his Oscar for the "Lincoln" screenplay by the guy who wrote "Argo!"

August 13, 2013 5:54 pm I think it is fair to say that Hickman often does not prepare the reader for character developments. For instance, the villains from the beginning of his Avengers run, Ex Nihilo and the other one (whose name I can't recall) are suddenly asked to join the team? Wha?

August 13, 2013 5:50 pm I, too, love the phrase '"fortune cookie speak." It does, all too often, sum up Hickman's style. I would also describe his style with the more mundane "purple" as in, "It's an Avengers world!" In truth, I do think his "New Avengers" run has been reasonably intriguing and entertaining thus far, but I keep holding out hope for "Avengers," and I keep getting disappointed. On the whole, I don't think Hickman's work can hold a candle to Remender's "Uncanny Avengers" or Gillen's "Young Avengers."

August 10, 2013 11:52 pm I didn't think this issue was terrible. Lorna getting drunk shows us the rarely portrayed instance of a superhero behaving in an irresponsible, yet human, manner. I found the story a couple of issues ago with Madrox and Layla in Morocco to be superb. It looks like this title is going to be rebooted rather than just cancelled, and that make me happy.

August 4, 2013 6:01 pm Sorry, forgot to check the "spoilers" box, but the comic is already a couple of weeks old.

July 28, 2013 8:46 pm I liked a lot of "Pacific Rim," but the way the scientists were used for comic relief made me roll my eyes. Whenever you see smart people made to look foolish in a Hollywood movie, it's usually for marketing reasons. Hollywood execs think that working class audiences want the less educated to look more competent than the more educated characters. Another recent example of this is Sandra Bullock's Yale educated FBI agent looking less capable than Melissa McCarthy's scruffy Boston detective in "The Heat." This is even though I doubt one could become a detective in a large American police force without having a degree, nowadays. One film that pleasantly bucked this tendency was "The Avengers."

July 27, 2013 8:02 pm Oops! Actually, I think Fox made this movie, not Warner Bros., which made "Man of Steel."

July 27, 2013 8:00 pm I enjoyed "The Wolverine," and would give it four out of five stars. The internet is already buzzing with the news that this film is not making as much as the studio expected. Well, I don't believe the studio's public estimates. The studios have a good idea from experience about what kind of business a sequel will do, and we can tell from a couple of factors that expectations for "The Wolverine" were good, but not stratospheric. First of all, the movie is being released mid-summer, not at the beginning like dependable blockbusters "Iron Man 3" and "Man of Steel." Second, the studio did not put a ton of cash into "The Wolverine." The CGI in this movie is not jaw dropping. Some critics were OUTRAGED! OUTRAGED I TELL YOU! By the collapsing buildings in "Man of Steel." But those collapsing buildings were an awesome CGI spectacle that cost a bundle to put on screen. Warner clearly did not put as much money into "Wolverine." Nonetheless, I found "The Wolverine" to have a solid plot with good characterization. I'm curious Paul. This is an action adventure film but you didn't like the third act? Really? What would you have rather seen -- Logan and the villains talk things over and come to an understanding?

July 25, 2013 8:43 pm Peter David wrote a terrific Ant-Man, Wasp, Hulk team-up in which the villain was Loki! This was a some sort of special one shot with a special cover. I don't know when it was originally published, because I found it in the dollar bin. I've seen copies of it in various dollar bins, so if you come across this comic, it's very worth reading. By the way, am I the only one who noticed that Kevin Feige let slip during SDCC that Hank Pym is going to be the Ant-Man in the movie? I would have thought that this would be bigger news, since there was a great deal of speculation as to which Ant-Man would be the hero of the film.