Henry Imler May 4th, 2008

No, this is not a post about the perils of media consumptions, just some spastic comments touching some of the media I have consumed recently.

Iron Man - Wow, great summer superhero movie.  The folks contributing to Rotten Tomatoes got it right, this one is a gem. From the effects to the story to the the dialog, everything was very well done.  I went with a large group of friends late Thursday night to see the opening.

JR, Jake, Grant, Q, Meredith, and others went with me.  Jake’s wife, Dawn, was too sick to go Thursday.  On Friday Meredith was out of town helping with a wedding shower, so I invited Jake and Dawn to go see it with me Friday.  Jake replied to my offer saying that Dawn was still sick and therefore could not make it.  So, I bought my lone ticket to the 10:45 showing thinking that it was better than sitting around preparing for the review session I am teaching Monday.  About 5 minutes later, I get an email from Jake saying that Dawn urged him to see the flick a second time.  And so we went and reveled in the glory that is Iron Man for a second time.  Afterwards, we got to thinking and happened upon a funny, yet sad fact: we entered into Friday watching Iron Man in the theater and we exited Friday watching Iron Man in the theater.

I appreciated all of the small tie ins to the comic.  From the mentioning of the ten rings to the War Machine plans in the credits, there were lots of little things to notice and look for in the sequel.  The final scene after the credits?  Perfect.  Although, if Fury is Samuel Jackson, then the suit is all wrong and Stark should have been bald and blue-skinned in his young pictures. (i.e. should have been Ultimate Iron Man to go with Ultimate Nick Fury)  However, anything is better than Baywatch Nick Fury.

Fear Agent - This campy, grisly space comic is well worth your while.  As my friend Jake says, it is a 1950’s space comic.  Buy this now.

Super Mario Galaxy - I bought this game with Christmas money.  I played it some over Christmas break and loved it.  After leaving it at my in-laws for 4 months, I am playing it every once and a while.  It is truly a great game in all respects, save one.  The graphics are gorgeous; the game play and storyline are imaginative and fresh (for a mario game).  The one problem is the boss battles, which are often repetitive and simple to beat.  Beyond that, however, the game is spectacular.

Mario Kart - Everything they say is true.  At once, the same is immaculate and ridiculous at the same time.  The new courses are beautiful.  The multiple control schemes allow for fun for everyone.  The only problem?  Item bloat.  The items are simply punishing.  You can go from 1st to 8th in a matter of seconds.  This is all fine and dandy when you are racing your friends, but when you are trying to unlock Daisy for you wife and all you need is to finish Rainbow Road in the top three, getting bombarded with a redshell, lightning, blue-shell and the pow block in a 10 second span on the last lap becomes rather irritating.  Group play?  Fan-tastick, with a k.

Justice League/ Justice League Unlimited - I watched this series the last couple of months while working on Greek or preparing to teach.  It follows the creation and exploits of DC Comics’ Justice League.  The first few seasons only deal with the 7 founding members (in this incarnation, anyway), Superman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawk Girl, and the Green Lantern.  In the last few seasons, they expand the universe to include all of the members of the Justice League.  Because of this, the last few seasons are great if you want little side stories on minor DC characters.  However, this also has the side effect of series loosing focus.  It is at its best when mantaining a cohesive storyline with the main seven characters.  Overall, it is worth watching on netflix, but not collecting the DVDs.

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Henry Imler April 13th, 2008

As I am sure you have noticed, I have taken to blogging about comics lately. I am a relative newcomer to the comic scene. Before my friends Jake and LaRue began just leaving comic trades on my desk last year, I had not read a comic with the exception of the occasional X-Men title in the dentist office growing up. Quite a few of my friends (JR, Jake, LaRue, Hank, Q) have large comic book collections that they have opened up to me. For this, I am grateful to them; they have saved me an ungodly amount of dime.

Accordingly, I am far and away not an expert on comics. I am no where near in deep enough to where I can even start thinking about going indie with my comics.

I do know a good comic blog when I see one. One such blog is Comics Should Be Good!.  Not only does it provide one with great commentary on comics rooted in a dept of background knowledge, it is pretty funny to boot.  Here are some sample posts illustrating these principles:

Comic Book Alphabet of Cool - T

Captain America #34 Review

Pretty good posts, no?

I mean, any comic blog that dregs up the following image is worthy to be subscribed to in my book.

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Henry Imler April 11th, 2008

One of my favorite comic series of all time is Kingdom Come.  It tells the story of a superhero community run amok and Superman’s attempt to right the community.  The great Alex Ross did the art work for the series.  The special thing about Alex’s work is his attention to detail.  For example, take a look at the following section from page 103, where Superman is talking with Orion, who has usurped Darkseid’s throne and know tries to rule Apokolips justly.

The above panels only take up a minor portion of the page (see below), but Ross nevertheless makes sure to keep the person speaking in focus.  When Superman is talking to Orion, he is in focus and vise versa.  The effect is subtle enough that I did not notice it the first time through.  But it did influence the way I read the comic.  I did not realize it the first time through, but I did the second time. When I did finally realize this, I was blown away. I think the reason I did not catch the effect is because of how natural and life-like it was.

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Henry Imler April 8th, 2008

Batman and the Monster Men is part of the retelling/modernization of Wayne’s first year as the Bat-Man.  Overall, it is pretty good.  In the scene below the Bat-Man is about to crash a monster mash at a gangster’s house.  Previously he has wrecked the first incarnation of the batmobile, which was essentially a beefed up sedan.  Needing another mode of transporation, he is preparing to use the batmobile mark II:

Just below this scene Alfred makes a snide remark as only he can.

The subtle turn of Bruce’s head followed up by Alfred’s quip is priceless.  And sure enough in Batman and the Mad Monk the batmobile is rocking the fins.

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Henry Imler April 7th, 2008

Remember that opened spaceship filled with hero doppelgangers?  I don’t think that situation will be resolved peacefully.

HT: Hank.

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Honzo April 3rd, 2008

I hope Beast is a Skrull so we can go back to non-cat Beast.

-Some Cat on a Forum

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Henry Imler April 3rd, 2008

Secret Invasion hit the streets yesterday.  I grabbed a copy this afternoon.  (I did not go to mininova.org and search for Secret Invasion and download it and neither should you.  Just go out and buy the comic - it is pretty cheap.)  It is pretty tight.  Here are the highlights along with some scans of the comic.

The issue opens with Stark revealing the invasion to Hank Pym and Reed Richards

As Stark finishes discussing how the shape-shifting Skrulls are undetectable by means of magic, mutant powers, and current technology, a Skrull spaceship crashes into the Savage Lands.  The Mighty Avangers can’t get there quickly, so Spider Woman makes a call to Luke Cage and the Secret Avangers and tips them off to what is happening.  Durring the call, Luke Cage looks suspicously like a Skrull (this comes into play later).  The Secret Avangers steal one of Stark’s quinjets and head off to the Savage Lands to intercept the first wave of the invasion.  Not long after this, the Mighty Avangers assemble, realize that the quinjet has been stolen, and take off after both the Skrull ship and the Secret Avengers.

The Mighty Avengers catch up to the Secret Avengers right as the Secret Avengers locate the crashed Skrull ship, which is still sealed up.  Because of that, there is some speculation as to the contents of the ship - is it the first wave or is it escaped heroes that have been kidnapped and replaced?  Before anyone can open the ship, Stark plays policeman and “places”   the SA under arrest.  Cage tells off Stark and rips open the ship’s door.  As a result of this, a presure plate goes off and several events are sparked.

First, the Skrull-Dugan blows up S.W.O.R.D.’s base orbiting the earth.  Then Skrull-Jarvis uploads a virus into Stark Tower’s computer mainframe, taking out every computer hooked into Stark’s network.  This means the Iron Man suit, all Stark/SHIELD satellites, even all of the Helecarriers.  Then a man touring the Baxter Building morphs into a copy of Susan Storm and teleports the Baxster Building into the negative zone.

(Click for larger images)

With Earth’s defenses down and the hero community in disarray, the real Skrull fleet invades.

As of this is occurring, we are taken back to the crashed Skrull spaceship.  Out from the ship pours a bunch of heros all acting as though they have escaped and have finally made it back to Earth, most of whom are wearing old school costumes.

Which Luke Cage is the real Luke Cage?  Which Spiderman? Thor? Wolverine? Captain America (remember, there is the dead body, the possible clone at Red Skull’s, and the one that just stepped out of the spaceship)?  I don’t know and neither do you.

Also, am I the only one who can’t get enough of the pimptastic old school Luke Cage?

He was gonna say “Sweet Christmas.”

Now, back at Stark Labs, Reed Richards has figured out how the Skrulls are able to mask their identities and the following happens:

Pym is a Skrull as well - and shoots Richards before he can share the secret.

The Skrull invasion has begun - and is proceeding as planned.

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