J-Shap

August 29, 2013 9:29 pm - Hawkeye - Saga - Wonder Woman - Daredevil - Fatale

August 20, 2013 3:04 pm If you are going to have Bat-humor, make it the dry sardonic kind they used to great effect on JLU. But yeah, Bruce should never smile. I think that would actually be more disturbing.

August 20, 2013 3:02 pm Backing up computerized sense of comics nowadays, what's bugging me a lot more than perfectly crafted life-like pencils is more the coloring. Next Wednesday, go to the store and flip through any book you can find and try not to focus on the linework and just the whole page. Everything looks incredibly same-y with homogenous coloring. We need to be thankful for the Dean Whites, Jordie Baillieres, and Matt Hollingsworths out there.

August 19, 2013 12:44 pm Loeb runs Marvel's TV department, and is responsible for the inception of this show as well as the cancellation of Avengers: EMH and homogenizing the tone of animated Marvel shows. He also had Ultimate Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch commit incest, turned the Hulk's entire supporting cast into gamma monsters, fucked up the Ultimate Universe so badly that Marvel has now completed given up and destroying it, and continuously refuses to give the very talented Ed McGuinness anything good to draw. Even if his involvement was limited, fans are going to find him justly deserving of their collective ire.

August 14, 2013 7:46 pm NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Well, at least Karl Kessel on Fantastic Four is always a pleasure. Why hasn't he had an extended run yet? Seriously though, Inhuman better be fucking fantastic and/or Casanova Vol. 4 is coming within the year. Especially the latter.

August 13, 2013 11:37 am My troll-sense is tingling!

July 21, 2013 12:48 pm Hallelujah!

July 21, 2013 12:43 pm Just when you thought Uncanny Avengers would come out on schedule! Enter McNiven! Still looking forward to it though. McNiven's fantastic, but if they ditched Cassaday so that they could ship monthly, then this is kind of a regression.

June 14, 2013 1:33 pm SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Let me just make one thing perfectly clear: conceptually, I have no problem with Superman killing Zod if it means protecting the innocent. The reason why it didn't work in this movie: they did nothing to earn it. Superman killing anybody is a pretty frickin' huge deal, since that's basically Supes rule #1, but if you are going to be bold and cross it, then you need to make sure it isn't a decision taken lightly. The scene itself, out of context with the rest of the film, probably worked perfectly; it clearly established that as long as Zod was alive he was a threat to the people of Earth, and Clark had absolutely no choice. Moreover, after he killed him, he was beyond devastated and ashamed of himself. The problem was there was nothing building up to that and nothing afterward. If they had made it a recurring source of conflict - what's more important: saving lives or preserving integrity - throughout the movie, and it thematically built up to the moment where he had no choice, it might've worked. But there was nothing like that. I don't even remember a scene where it was established that he didn't kill. If you weren't familiar with Superman at all, you might assume that this was just another day in the park. But what was even worse is that nothing affected Clark afterward. it was such a weighty decision that you need a lot more fallout than Clark screaming at the top of his super-lungs for about the 14th time in the last 2 hours. What's the following scene? Him smack-talking the military and talking to his mom. Hasn't his entire perspective on life changed now that he's actually killed somebody. This isn't unique to alien supergods, this is something soldiers and cops go through all the time when they make their first kill. But Clark just goes on like normal. And don't feed me crap about how it will resolve in the sequel. "We don't have anymore time in the movie to deal with the fallout so we'll just save it for the next one!" That isn't serialized storytelling, that's just procrastination. The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that Nolan and Snyder didn't want to make a bold examination of the real responsibilities a superhero would have in the real world, especially Superman. It was either A) they wanted to be shocking, or B) they didn't like this element of the Superman mythos and wanted to get rid of it. Both of which, are just lazy. As for the rest of the movie... meh. Good stuff with both fathers, interesting but distracting narrative choices, action started off nice and just got way too big, and goddammit Superman needs more personality. Whole thing was so dire and flat. The script needed a Joss Whedon or a Sam Raimi or a Jon Favreau.

May 11, 2013 3:32 pm Understandable reaction, but (coming from someone who's not a big Grant Morrison fan) he can do standalone material very concisely and in an entertaining matter. His runs on Batman and X-Men (anything long and serialized) are confusing, but when he does smaller, more contained works, he can be weird without being confusing (i.e. All-Star Superman, Joe the Barbarian).