Comics Review: Ultimate Marvel Team-Up by Brian Michael Bendis and various artists

I always a huge fan of Marvel Team-Up in the 70's and 80's (my formative Geek years, sort of like the Wonder Years except no cute girls in go-go boots kissing me).

For those of you who are NOT experienced, as Mr. Hindrix would say, Marvel Team-Up was a monthly, continuity free book where every month Spider Man had an adventure with a different guest star.

It's one of those books that geeks, especially hard core comics geeks love. Chris Claremont wrote for it and gave it up VERY reluctantly to focus on more X-books, and it was one of the first things Brian Michael Bendis wanted to revive, and doing it in the Ultimate universe as a "world tour" type concept seemed like a great way to try out a lot of different concepts.

It didn't last long, only 16 issues, but you'll see some great updates and reimaginings on a ton of classic heroes and the hardback collects all 16 issues in a gorgeous, durable, slick paper binding. It's just a book I had to have when I saw it at Barnes and Noble.

In these 16 issues Spider Man teams up with (see? see? get it? concept right there!) Blade, Elektra, Daredevil, Captain America, Human Torch, Fantastic Four, Shang Chi, Iron Man, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Punisher, Man Thing (!!), Lizard and more.

The list of artists is also a who's who of comics' hottest pencilers, including: Mike Allred, Alex Maleev, John Romita Sr., Al Milgrom, Mark Bagley and Bill Sienkiewicz.

This hardcover's real stars though are Brian Michael Bendis and his fantastic take on Ultimate Spider Man. And Spider Man as written by Bendis is just hilarious, like this exchange between Spider Man and Black Widow:
Spider Man "You're a little older and uh- uh-
Black Widow "A little more mature?"
Spider Man "I was thinking: slutty."

In short, if you'd like to see the most influential comic writer since Stan Lee and a host of great artists do some classic updates of a cross-section of Marvel's coolest heroes, pick this up.

Chuck

Site Stuff

Just wanted to let folks know that there's a new way to keep track of the blog. There's an RSS feed and an Atom feed, so if you have one, it's an easier way to keep track of my sporadic musings.

If you'd like more information about an RSS feed, I recommend the Mozilla browser, which has a really nice RSS feed you can set up and monitor from a simple toolbar. It will also search for feeds on a site if you're not clear whether or not the site has a syndication feed.

We now return you to your normal musings about comics, games and movies, the important things in life.

Chuck

Comics Review: Batman, Officer Down by various

Officer Down is a Batman tradeback collecting a crossover in the "Bat-verse". Like the X-men of the Marvel Universe, Batman occupies his own little corner of the DC Universe with a unique and interesting cast of characters, most of whom appear in this crossover.

The Bat-verse is one of my favorite things about DC. First of course, Batman is an amazing character, one of the three most iconic in all of comics (the other two are Superman and Spiderman for the interested).

But his comics are also inhabited by a wide range of interesting characters, including Oracle, the former Batgirl, crippled by the Joker, now a hacker. She knows everything.

Nightwing, the former Robin, no longer a sidekick, he prowls the streets on his own, having come into his own as the leader of the Teen Titans.

The new Robin, Batman's current partner and student.

The new Batgirl, a very strange character who almost never talks and is Oracle's protege.

The Gotham PD, a Homicide-esque unit of cops, all interesting characters in their own right. Ever wonder what it would be like to be a normal cop in Gotham? Me neither, but these guys make you want to find out, to the point that they currently have their own comic.

This tradeback concerns the shooting of Comissioner Gordon, a long time ally of Batman. And it looks like Catwoman is responsible. What follows is a great mystery (at the heart of the best Batman stories) with a lot of action and of course, since it's Gotham, some twisted tales along the way.

This is one of my favorite tradebacks and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read a good Batman tale by the many talented writers and artists who work on his books over at DC.

Chuck

Casting Captain America: the movie

Since I've had Cap on the brain lately, and I know Marvel is working on the script for bringing him to the big screen, I thought I'd help them out on casting.

Captain America

This is a toughie, but I have to go with Marc Blucas. An unknown to a lot of folks (a good thing), Marc Blucas was pretty impressive as marine Riley Finn for a season or so of Buffy. At 6'4" and fairly big, he brings the right physical presence, radiates pure midwest Americana and at 34, he's now grizzled enough to convey the living legend.



Red Skull

What's a movie without a villain? And for a Cap movie, the search for the right villain starts and ends with the Skull. Plus, as anyone who's seen Unbreakable knows, the foil for the hero should be his opposite and no one better fits that bill than the Red Skull. For the role I went with an actor who genuinely creeps me out (that's a compliment in case you weren't sure): Crispin Glover. If you'd like to see him in a very comic book-ish movie as a creepy villain, check out his turn as the "Thin Man" in Charlie's Angels (a movie that's worth watching anyway).








Nick Fury

Like the Skull, Nick Fury is a must for any Captain America movie. Fury represents the other side of the American military, the side with a harder edge, willing to justify the means by the ends. To cast Fury I think you need two things: American and Bad Ass. He simply has to have attitude in bunches, the kind that says "don't mess with me son" without a word. This is harder to come by than you might think. Twenty years ago you'd go with Charlton Heston but today there's really only one choice: Bruce Willis.





Black Widow

Like Fury, the Widow represents the ruthless side of the spy game. She also brings a whole lot of sex appeal to the movie (never a bad thing). She also needs to be smart, tough and charismatic. A tough casting assignment, except for the fact that there's a lady in Hollywood right now who is every one of those things: Angelina Jolie.











The Story

Fury sends the Black Widow undercover toinvestigate the current activities of ex-KGB agent Alexander Lukin. Unfortunately Lukin, owner of the multinational Kronas Corporation, has had a monster living inside him for some time: the Red Skull. The creature inside has won the battle and gained full control of Lukin's body. The Widow is missing and is presumed captured. Fury contacts Cap and asks for his help in finding her.

After the two make their way into the heart of Kronas Corp's HQ, they find that the Skull has brainwashed Widow using Lukin's knowledge of her past as a Soviet operative. While Cap takes down the Skull, Fury has to find a way to take out one of his deadliest operatives without killing her.

Podcast Corner: The Hotspot by Gamespot

I'm a huge podcast fan and I've already covered a few of my favorites for RPGs in a previous post.

This time around, since man does not live by pen and paper RPGs alone, I'd like to talk about a video game podcast: Gamespot's The Hot Spot.

This is not only my favorite video game podcast by a wide margin, it's also a SERIOUS contender for my favorite podcast, period (with Does My Geek and Have Games Will Travel being the other contenders).

Not only do you get some serious info about console gaming of all types (PS, X-Box, Nintendo plus all the portables) but this podcast is EASILY the funniest podcast I have ever listened to. If you can listen to the guys go on a total rant about Bill Gates' favorite game in the August 1st episode without laughing you're a better man than I.

You can listen to the podcast here or on Itunes (my preferred method for listening to podcasts).

Chuck

D&D is directly threatened by MMOs (World of Warcraft)

I think D&D is the RPG most directly threatened by MMOs and will eventually be replaced by them.

Think about what D&D does better than any game: deliver an action RPG experience where you explore the unknown, delve into dungeons, kill things, take their stuff, get more powerful then repeat.

While you *can* do lots of other things in D&D, the experience above is (imo obviously) the aspect of the game that it does better than any other game.

It's also the aspect of the game that can be emulated by MMOs more successfully than almost any other RPG.

In other words, while the dungeon crashing experience can be done very successfully on a computer, other RPGs based on narrative control, or personal interaction (storytelling games) won't be nearly as enjoyable on a computer. This means that D&D is threatened by MMOs more than other RPGs.

To a lesser extent I think any game focused on combat is vulnerable to this. Look at City of Heroes, a game which captures many of the charms of Hero/Champions and other superhero games.

This leaves D&D as a social gathering, which I think can sustain it for awhile, but I think technology will eventually allow MMOs to capture even this social aspect of the game.

None of this is groundbreaking or original, just me compiling a bunch of thoughts I've had, inspired by various sources.

Chuck

Acting Up

Stan Lee has famously said that comics is all one long second act. If you think about it, using his signature creation Spider Man as an example, his first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 tells the origin story with all its power and responsibility.

Nerd gets bitten by radioactive spider, nerd fails to stop criminal, nerd's uncle is killed by said criminal, nerd get religion on the whole responsibility and power thing, nerd becomes superhero.

The next time we see Spider Man, he's in high school, dealing with his issues, taking care of Aunt May and trying to find time to fight crime on the side. That's Act II of the story, for those playing the home game, and we've been there for the last 30 years.

This is why comics need (to the chagrine of hardcore fans) the occasional reboot or reimagining. You can only juggle so long before you drop a ball, or decide that adding a new ball would be great.

Some comic movies look at Act I just the way Stan tended to: make it memorable and make it felt for the entire series, but get it the frack out of the way as soon as possible. X-men is a good example of this. Despite taking the entire movie to show the team coming together, it still manages to feel like one long trailer for X-2.

Some comic movies dispense with the first act entirely. For example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We never see her first mission or her meeting with her first Watcher until a Season 2 flashback. In Episode 1 she is already in Act 2.

Some of the best comic movies though, take delight in that other act, the one Stan says we should ditch as soon as possible. Unbreakable is possibly my favorite superhero movie and it is all Act I, painstakingly setting up the hero's powers, his motivation, his weakness and even his arch-nemesis.

The Incredibles is the same way. While the adult heroes had their powers and were experienced heroes, as Mr. Incredible was fond of saying, "they worked alone". Over the course of the movie we see the four heroes come together as a family but also as a true superhero team.

And of course Smallville is 5 years and counting of Act I. I actually am afraid they will end the show without a single shot of Clark in the costume, which would be a huge cop-out imo.

Now there's also a few comics that have shown us a third act, such as Claremont and Byrne's classic "dark future" X-men tale that shows the death of the X-men in a future controlled by the Sentinels.

No movie I'm aware of has done an Act III supers movie yet. I think the perpetual second act is one reason why movies have fallen in love with comics a little. Movie franchises work that way to begin with and comics are as good at juggling the second act as soaps (though not quite as good as Jason movies).

I'd love to see an Act III comic movie. I think M. Night could do one about "Security" from Unbreakable.

As a writer these kinds of constructions and genre conventions fascinate me. Hope this was equally interesting for everyone else.

Chuck