CBF 2010 Mid-Year Report Card
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We’re days away from San Diego (the comic world in general, not us – we’re glued to our desks playing Pokemon) and I felt it good to review what the 1st half of 2010 brought to us from the lands of Marvel and DC. This site has devoted a lot to DC books as of late, but there are still a few good Marvel showings that came out that weren’t Avenger-related. That being said, we really felt DC gave a lot to the readers from both its superhero and Vertigo imprints. Enjoy the show and all the best to those attending San Diego this year! |
CBF Quick Picks #28 : Thanos Imperative #2
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Two weeks of books to catch up on, folks. I breeze through last week first to give you the hands-down pick in Scarlet #1. Good to see Bendis back in the creator-owned realm after being in Avenger land for so long. Bringing back his Daredevil artist cohort in Alex Maleev is always a welcome treat too. From there, a swarm of excellent books came out this week, making it very difficult to establish a Quick Pick. In the end, I gave it to the latest chapter in Marvel’s summer cosmic adventure, Thanos Imperative. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (or DnA as the interwebz is calling them) continue to bring epic material to their takes on the Marvel cosmic heroes and villains that fight in their own little corner of the universe. The only thing that stinks is not having monthly series like Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy along for the ride (they’re on hold for this mini-series) because there is just too much to enjoy with these characters. Enjoy the show and keep a lookout for more cool stuff soon on CBF! You can check out Thanos Imperative #2 right here. |
CBF Quick Picks #21 : American Vampire #3
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With Avengers #1 officially kicking off the Heroic Age and Brightest Day #2 once again bringing the Geoff Johns awesomeness, you would think it would come down to these two in the front running for Quick Pick of the week. Then comes along another stellar Vertigo series that re-energizes the vampire mythology. Scott Snyder and Stephen King are amazing in this new portrayal of the popular creature and Rafael Albuquerque has superstar written all over him with the styles he brings to both talented writers. The whole series screams of the theme defiance, both in what the main characters are doing against the traditional European breed of vampire and in what Snyder and King are bringing to the table against the many other TV and movie series that are already portraying them. Enjoy the show and give me your thoughts on the series! |
CBF Quick Picks #20: DC Rules The Universe
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There was too much going on in DC land to limit this to one or two books to Quick Picks this week. As much as Return of Bruce Wayne deserved a good amount of hype, I was thoroughly impressed by a bunch of DC offerings. DC is hot right now and I’m glad they’re continuing to build other franchises beyond the Batman and Green Lantern names.
This is not to say that Marvel didn’t have a good week too – just that DC did things one better. Marvel wrapped up Siege and officially began their march into Heroic Age. It was nice that they finally wrapped up all those threads, but my review here on iFanboy can give you some insight as to why I felt it could have done a whole lot more.
Enjoy the podcast!
DC Animated DVDs Getting A Trimming
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The animated world takes a moment of silence…
It’s interesting after being on the Graphic.ly chat last night discussing the past and future animated offerings from Marvel and DC that we get this article. Looks like Bruce Timm needs to trim down his choices for the next few DC animated DVDs for the foreseeable future what with sales looking bleak lately for the last few offerings. A darn shame if you think about it – what they had in mind would have really been interesting had it been given the “Timm-iverse” effect.
Hit the Play button and leave your comments and thoughts. Anything you think we can do about this? Should we go grab our pitchforks and go poke the mainstream audience with them?
CBF Kick-Ass Review
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A little movie came out this weekend about donkeys that get kicked. Sad, sad story…
Provided you can get past the ultra-violence (though the book did much worse) and potty-mouth, this is an excellent adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s comic mini-series that asks the question – what if a real person decided to become a superhero? The answer is he’d be great at karaoke bars. Or if that doesn’t work, he’d be great at getting in way over his head, as Kick-Ass finds out the hard way when he enters the world of the mob. He also finds out that Big Daddy and Hit-Girl overtook him as the stars of this movie too.
Spoilers abound here. Impressive stuff – go check it out before Iron Man comes and smacks it around…
New Bendis/Maleev project announced at C2E2
C2E2 is under way and already comic book land is dropping bombshells. As reported on IGN Comics, Bendis is working on a new creator-owned booked on the Marvel Icon imprint entitled Scarlett. It asks the questions what if everything you believed in the world betrayed you and what if your response to it caused a revolution? How political this will get remains to be seen – comics always tend to tread a thin line when it comes to those topics.
Bendis’ work lately on all things Avengers has kind of worn off on me (I’ll stay positive though and expect the best for the Heroic Age), but I am definitely excited about him getting back into creator-owned work. Powers is one of my favorite series and is what made me aware of the potential Bendis could bring to the Marvel universe when they signed him over to the company. And working with a top notch artist like Maleev, whom Bendis has collaborated with before on Daredevil and Secret War, will only make this piece much more intriguing.
It’s scheduled to hit in July around SDCC week.
CBF Quick Picks #15 – S.H.I.E.L.D. #1
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It’s such a simple idea yet done so well – what if S.H.I.E.L.D. existed since the beginning of civilization?
I needed a reason to read some Jonathan Hickman stuff after hearing the buzz about his work on Fantastic Four and Secret Warriors. This is a fascinating and imaginative story that should only get better with Hickman’s energetic writing and Dustin Weaver’s crisp pencils at hand here. They could have done more to explain the protagonist, but it’s a prelude, so I’m not griping yet.
The guest cameos by key Marvel villains are the icing on the cake and surprisingly fit well in Marvel continuity (if that means anything in comic book land, of course. I’m predicting Wolverine will appear in issue 3 and discover electricity with Ben Franklin…)
Enjoy!
CBF Thoughts – Captain America Done Right
So it’s official – Chris Evans puts on the star-spangled costume in 2011, finally helping to get the ball rolling for the new Captain America movie. I’m sure Marvel is pretty ecstatic to finally get some movement going for the last of the Big Three that will comprise the core of the Avengers movie in 2012. The question now remains is will we get the right Captain America movie when it hits theaters.
I’m sure you’re curious now as to what I feel is the right Captain America movie. I don’t think it needs to be too complex – what’s so complicated about a guy picking up a shield and fighting Nazis – but it at least needs to hit these core values:
1) Stick to the WWII time frame – for a lot of introductory superhero movies and shows nowadays, it’s been very difficult to stick to the origin story and come up with something unique and make them stand out. Cap stands out right away because this will be Marvel’s chance to really tell a great WWII superhero story. Does it not sound awesome to see Cap charging with shield in front into a whole Nazi platoon?
Granted, we will eventually need to transition this into the 21st century if we want to know why a WWII veteran is leading a superhero team and somehow can keep his face fresh without botox, but it need not be the core of this origin story.
2) Don’t get a cameo addiction – the one thing you can definitely say that made X-Men 3 and Wolverine stink badly was trying to fit way too many characters into short time frames. While X-Men 3 can be somewhat forgiveable knowing that they wanted to end the trilogy with a cameo bang, that was not forgiveable for what was supposed to be the definitive origin story of one of Marvel’s signature characters. Captain America cannot fall into that trap – this is Cap’s story through and through and the supporting characters need to be key in building that story instead of bringing it down into the eternal abyss. They cannot be just there for the sake of being there.
3) Keep the politics out – IGN Comics made a good point about this in their feature of making the perfect Captain America movie. If we know the character well, it’s that he is loyal to the American Dream, not the government or military. He will fight for them as long as they are true to the Dream as well, but he won’t think twice about turning his back to them if it means the Dream is in jeopardy. The best example of this was in Civil War – he made you feel conflicted when reading the series because while you would think Cap would side with the pro-registration community, he actually does the opposite because he believed that all Americans’ personal liberties and privileges were about to be taken away.
I, like IGN, make this point because it’s no secret that America doesn’t have the greatest reputation with some countries around the world. To make this movie all about how great America’s government is would make people question what this movie is trying to get across to us – is it about making a political statement or about a man fighting for his people and their futures?
4) Bucky WILL actually help the movie – The one thing I’ve loved about the recent Batman movies so far is that Robin has been kept on the sidelines. That’s not to say I don’t like the character – Robin just does not fit with Christopher Nolan’s vision for the franchise. And that works fine with me – this trilogy is all about exploring Batman’s rise to glory and how his city reacts. With Cap, everybody that knows his origin story in the books knows Bucky is key to Cap’s WWII roots and his presumed death is what drives Cap to lead the Avengers upon coming out of his frozen state and assure that he will never leave a partner behind ever again. The best part will be, should we get sequels, that Bucky has more to offer should Marvel go the route of Ed Brubaker’s run on the book so far. I’m personally excited to see that should that be the case.
What are your thoughts? Any potential pitfalls that could derail the flick? Or will we get the definitive Cap story we always wanted?
CBF Quick Picks #12 : Joe the Barbarian #1 & Siege #2
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I braved a foot of snow to bring you this podcast…
A double dose of Quick Picks comes to you this week to make up for the lack of one last week. 2010 has been excellent so far for the comic book medium and made it difficult to choose which one to talk about. Ultimately, I approved of a new creator-owned effort from Grant Morrison and forgave Marvel for flooding their 1st entry in the Siege series with ads and features after they put out a stellar 2nd part.
NOTE: I’m still working on the audio issues, so I’m hoping you all can bear the echoing and scratching sounds here. Pretend it’s your cat howling and scratching at your legs…