Jessica Jones Season One

There's a world of difference between making things dark and gritty for the sake of it and exploring actual human darkness and complexity. Too often, what happens is that the whole "comics aren't for kids anymore" thing winds up just adding surface grit. They turn down the colors, add a bunch of violence and say "bam! this is now realistic!" but it's not, Zack Snyder, it's not! But when it's done correctly, we get Jessica Jones, which is probably the only time I've ever seen the real implications of superhero shit handled seriously in live action. 

When this show was announced, I was excited because I really loved the comic, Alias, by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos. Bendis can be a bit much, but this is probably his masterpiece. It's a corner of the Marvel Universe that he pretty much created. He originally wanted the character to be ex Spider-Woman Jessica Drew, but I think it's better that failed superhero turned private eye Jessica Jones is a character he created for this and nobody really remembers her attempt at costumed heroics. The comic, like the show, winds up exploring the dark toll of her powers as well as what happens when one is mentally raped for years, pulling no punches whatsoever. So of all the Marvel shows coming to Netflix it was the one I was most excited for, but I didn't think they'd get it this right.

For starters, Krysten Ritter just is Jessica. I'm not sure I've ever seen better casting for a comic based thing. The angst just radiates off her but you also see a flicker of hope in there somewhere in her eyes or the way she walks. This is a woman who wants to believe in something: she wants to believe that she can atone, that humanity is worth her sense of guilt and responsibility.  She's that damn good. The show is that damn good. 

The whole atmosphere of the show just feels real. There are moments where they are out in the crowded streets of New York where I was struck by how "unproduced" it all felt. It seemed as thought they just went out and shot on the street, as is, which I'm sure they didn't, but they certainly pulled it off. There was just something about the way these characters, particularly Jessica, walk and generally inhabit the city, that felt very much alive in a way I haven't seen since maybe Taxi Driver or other 70s productions. I don't know. It's probably best not to even analyze it too much. As expected, I enjoyed this a whole lot more than the adequate Daredevil series. Still, I'm looking forward to more of this side of Marvel's universe on Netflix.  And more Jessica Jones, specifically.

Ant-Man: Big Fun in a Tiny Package

Nobody was more skeptical about the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe than me. Way back when Iron Man first hit and everyone loved how fun it was and it had that post credit scene, I was the cranky bastard saying "Meh." And it's not like I'm all in or anything, but the big surprise for me in all of this is that Marvel has managed to keep the individual films relatively self contained. It's not really one long narrative that you must watch all of in order to understand, even though that is totally happening also. So the further we've gotten into this, the whole bigger picture is more of a back drop. And, right now Ant-Man is the best example of how that works. It's a fun a movie that happens to take place in this universe using some concepts established in previous films, but you don't need any of that to get this movie.

I could go into a whole geek exploration about the Easter eggs in this movie. Well, I couldn't, but someone who really knows Ant-Man could (and they have). There are a few I caught and most I didn't. They're there (their?) and that's fine, because they don't detract. We still get charmed by Paul Rudd's Scott Lang. We still believe Michael Douglas's Hank Pym is weary and burdened with guilt and that he had many adventures. We still thrill at the action - both life size and sometimes comically miniature. And that comedy is what really sets this apart from not just the other Marvel films, but from other superhero films in general. This is quite possibly the most fun superhero movie I can remember seeing. Even more so than Guardians of the Galaxy, but that's really a Sci Fi movie anyway. But here, the balance is just right. It gets completely silly at times, but somehow it's in a good way because it just makes the whole thing that much more relatable.

I've had this nightmare.

Here we have a guy that's a true underdog, chosen to save the world while he tries to redeem himself for his daughter. This is not an asshole billionaire in an iron suit who, let's face it, comes across as a douchebag most of the time, making everyone else look stupid. This is not a white bread heart of gold scrawny kid who gets thrust into being a hero because he's determined to be one and ends up setting an ideal that is impossible for anyone to achieve. This is a flawed human being, who's been on the wrong side of the law, doesn't know what he's doing and is funny in a self deprecating way. He's smart, but he's no genius. He just wants to be able to spend time with his daughter and be respected by his ex and her fiance. In short, this is a guy I can really root for in a way I can't for Tony Stark or even Steve Rogers. 

Oceans 3

And the ride we take with him, although it could be argued is just basic formula, is one I'd gladly take again. Or some other version of it with more characters like this in this universe. If this Marvel thing is going to continue, this variety of tone they've been unafraid of needs to continue and expand. They are clearly not afraid of going gritty, as the Daredevil series demonstrates. They have what is basically a 70's style political spy thriller on their resume with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The Avengers films are giant blockbuster action extravaganzas. And, as I mentioned before, they have a straight up Sci Fi space opera. Ant-Man fits into this as a sort of light heist comedy that feels like the perfect refreshment in a world where the other studio is about to give us what looks like Batman and Superman frowning at each other for 3 hours while every other superhero in that universe stands in the background, grinding their teeth and posing. 

So, yeah, I really liked this movie a lot. It's hard to say which is my favorite Marvel movie so far, because at the end of the day, no matter how good they are, I am still a little worn out with the whole superhero thing. But if you asked me right now, just a few hours after having seen it, I might say it's Ant-Man. It just feels different enough from the rest of it to stand out. In a good way. 

Avengers Age of Ultron: Real Superheroes

Splash page brought to life

I just watched a movie where lives were at stake, the Earth was threatened by larger than life beings, hellbent on death and destruction and the complex group of individuals with various dark origins and uncontrollable raging powers who were there to stop the villain, still took the time to save lives and inspire each other, the world and the audience to go on and fight the good fight. It's ironic that back in the day, Marvel comics was the "gritty" real world alternative to the godlike and sometimes cheesy pantheon at DC, because if someone 25 years or so ago, read that description of the movie I just saw, they'd probably guess it was the Justice League, and not a screen version of one of the Avengers' darkest tales, Age of Ultron. Of course, that could be because Age of Ultron is a fairly recent comic, but still, you get the point. Everything Warner Bros got wrong with Man of Steel and the apparent tone of the upcoming Dawn of Justice, Age of Ultron addresses head on. It makes me wonder how much of it was intentional.

I'd watch the hell our of this movie.

Right off the bat, the movie opens with no preamble, in the middle of an epic battle. Each Avenger is showcased one by one in their own moments of general badassery, all while bantering. It's pure comic book fun, complete with a super slow motion splash page moment or two. I'm sure much of what happens in this opening scene and throughout the movie was teased or set up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I don't watch that show and it doesn't matter one bit. It's a thrilling opening that seems to pick up right where the first movie left off in terms of the tone, though it's clear some time has passed. I also haven't seen Iron Man 3 or Thor 2 and didn't feel lost for a second. I'm sure if you've seen everything they've done, then each chapter is that much more rewarding, but it's not at all necessary. 

Spader nailed it.

But, back to the tone. The banter is a big part of what made the first Avengers so successful for me. On the one hand it's fun. But on the other, the type of banter we get reveals depth to these people. And I say people instead of characters intentionally. But it's not the only thing that reveals their depth. We have moments of real humanity that drive the plot forward for each of them, particularly for Black Widow and Hulk/Banner, a relationship that deserves its own movie. And make no mistake,much of what's revealed is dark and heavy, but it never overwhelms the movie. Instead it serves to make what these human beings do that much more meaningful. If I had to pick only one flaw out of the many in Man of Steel, the biggest one is that we never really get Clark Kent. For all the flashbacks to his childhood, we never really hit on anything that has any baring on him as a human. On the contrary, the minute his human father dies, it's like he decided he's not human at all, and immediately latches on to Jor El the instant he sees his hologram. There's never a moment of doubting whether he's human or alien. He's not one of us and that's all there is to it. And because of that we can never really latch on to anything in the movie.

Vision needs to be seen more.

Anyway, Age of Ultron was great, is what I'm saying. If I have one issue with it it's that Vision was underused after all the build up. Especially since Paul Bettany nailed the character in the few scenes he did have. I'm curious where the franchise goes from here. The next big chapter will be Captain America: Civil War, and I'm sure the arguments the heroes had here set up the bigger ones they'll have there. Then comes Avengers: Infinity War, which might be pushing it for me, to be honest. I'm one episode away from finishing the Daredevil series on Netflix and kind of wish Marvel would scale back a bit and tell more of those street level stories instead of trying to get bigger with each one. But who knows. It is a little concerning that Joss Whedon won't be on board for the Infinity War. Let's hope he doesn't take all the humor with him.

Comic Event Season

We can bitch and moan about big comic book events all we want, but they aren't going away. Lately it seems events never really end, either. They just sort of morph into the next one or spin off into separate mini events until the next big one comes along. Either way, I think the key is to make the event what you want it to be. These are just stories, so just approach them as stories not as life or universe altering events. Of course, this would be easier to do if the publishers handled it properly on their end.

Right now, Marvel is into Fear Itself. Several ties have come out and the core Fear Itself book released issue 2 last week. I have decided to read only the core book. My thought is that you should be able to follow the story and get something out of it without having to read everything. The publishers themselves tell you this. So, is the case with Fear Itself? NO! They lie! Fear Itself, the book, is horrible. It's so condensed that nothing actually happens. Whether or not this is true of the whole event itself, I can't say, but as a series goes, Fear Itself started off ok with issue 1, but number 2 didn't do anything at all to move the story forward. So far, all we know is that this so-called Serpent character has unleashed all these hammers on the world, which are picked up by various people, who in turn are possessed by the Serpent's army. Meanwhile, Odin has recreated Asgard and chained up Thor. Still no clue who this Serpent person is or what he wants. Taking your time with a story is fine, but you have to give me something each issue.

It seems as though, instead of rewarding readers for reading all of the tie ins, Marvel is punishing readers for only reading one book. It's a missed opportunity to do something interesting with the medium. Properly done, what should happen is that no matter what title you follow, you get a complete story. Not THE complete story, mind you, just a story. Then, if you read other tie ins, you get more pieces to a larger story coming together. The main book, however, should be the backbone of the whole thing and not just rely on snippets to be expanded upon in the other titles. It should make me want to pick up the tie ins, not because I have to in order to know what's going on, but because you've given me enough to care about that I now have an interest in going deeper. If what you want is a story where you need what is being told in all the tie ins, then do it as a series of OGN's. To me, that's just common sense.

Last week, Marvel also released X-Men Prelude to Schism #1. While only a prelude to the upcoming X-Men event, I found it much more satisfying than Fear Itself. Nothing much happened in the book, but we did get a good set up of where the characters are at, particularly Cyclops. We know some kind of threat is at hand that has put Scott in the position to decide whether to fight or evacuate Utopia. And, really, in a prelude, that should be all we need to know. Whether this event will actually change everything for the X-Men, as advertised, or not, doesn't really matter, so long as it's a satisfying story.

Today, DC releases Flashpoint #1, which already looks promising. The many mini-series associated with Flashpoint look to be interesting. DC is once again playing with alternate realities, which is, I think, what they do best. And in those situations, events have a better chance of doing what I think they should. There's a much better chance that reading any of the minis will be satisfying, regardless of the bigger picture of the event. I will probably be following most of, if not all of Flashpoint, but I already predict the main story will not be the best part.

Manga for the Comics Guy - Gantz Volume 13

This volume was, ironically, back in familiar territory, by putting us in the middle of an insane alien dinosaur battle. While the action was big, the real focus of the issue was on emerging heroes, a theme that I have found consistent throughout Gantz. Where in previous volumes Kei has embraced his hero role, after the events in Shinjuku, Kei is more humble. It's no longer about glory for him, and at one point he actually remembers Kato and states that he needs to save the innocents. It's a big moment for his character development. This is, of course, perfectly countered by Izumi, who is hellbent on the glory of Gantz. All he wants is to be the sole survivor (when he's not romping around with the panda, WTF?).

But, to me, even more interesting than Kei and Izumi are some of the other characters who step up. We have the 2 superpower boys and the street fighter dude taking out dinosaurs with no suit on and no weapons. We have the old guy that teams up with Kei and ends up body slamming a brontosaurus(!). But the stand out is the father, suitless, weaponless, henpecked, taking down a dinosaur (raptor?), bare handed, in order to save his nagging wife and child. It's moments like that, that make this series so great. This is what makes it more than just crazy Sci Fi manga action. It puts a spin on the whole thing that makes me think Oku Hiroya is working on multiple levels on the big picture of this series. I don't know where it's going, but I'm certainly enjoying the surprisingly deep ride.

This week is a little slower for me comics-wise, but among the books out will be another series that continues to excel at character work and keeping me on my toes, Sweet Tooth #21, by Jeff Lemire, who also has Superboy #7 out. In addition, Marvel has Fear Itself #2, the only book in the Fear Itself event I am reading. The first issue was ok, so let's see how it works to read just this book. Will I be totally lost reading this issue, not having read the various tie ins that came out between them? We'll see. Marvel is also launching their X-Men event, Schism, with Prelude to Schism #1. The title alone, makes me think we actually HAVE seen them do this with X-Men already, but I'm willing to give it a chance. So, again, we'll see.

Comic Moments of the Week

Uncanny X-Men 534.1 is the latest of Marvel's .1 issues, designed to be jumping on points. In this case, I think it accomplished it's purpose because I am going to try to jump on. I didn't feel lost reading this, even though I haven't read X-Men in a very long time. But then, again, the last X-Men I read wasn't THAT long ago. It was during the Dark Reign, which I think set up most of the current status quo. In any case, Magneto is an X-Man now and the whole meat of this issue is that they've hired a publicist to help make him more acceptable to the public. Right off, that's a great concept. The execution is even better as most of the issue is spent in conversations between Magneto and the publicist about propaganda, fear, respect, etc, that manage to fill you in on events while not coming off as exposition for exposition's sake.

A new story arc, though I'm not sure a good jumping on point, begins in Sweet Tooth #20. I just don't see skipping the first 19 issues. The series hinges on these characters' development and even though part of what makes it brilliant is that the characters are revealed in every panel, their development over time, in relation to how all encompassing each panel can be is something to behold. There's two pages of conversation between Jeppard and Sweet Tooth in this issue that are absolutely perfect. Jeff Lemire, writing and drawing, puts a scene together that I would love to buy the original pages for. I won't post the whole page, but here's the first panel, which, by itself, would make a great painting. Beautiful composition.

And, what the hell, here's another panel from the issue that I love.

Also out, and as insane as expected, Axe Cop Bad Guy Earth #2. There's not much I can say about this issue that pretty much any random page couldn't tell you better. To top it off, this happens to be the first page. It's just pure, imaginative fun from a six year old brain.

Uncanny X-Force: Gateway to Marvel

I'm not generally a big Marvel guy. Once in a while I'll read some Marvel, though. World War Hulk was awesome and I was reading the Red Hulk stuff for a while. X-Men, however, I always find hard to get into because the continuity is almost prohibitive. Back in the day, I was all into it, though. Mutant Massacre, Days of Future Past, Dark Phoenix Saga, Age of Apocalypse, all that stuff. But at a certain point, having to read 15 different X-books to be able to understand what was happening was not something I wanted to do. The solution to this is Uncanny X-Force, written by Rick Remender. It's about as close to a stand alone X-book as Marvel can offer. After recent events, Wolverine and Archangel form a team in secret to do what the X-Men won't do. Rounding out the team are  Psyloche, Fantomex and Deadpool. Normally, I'm not a fan of Deadpool (understatement alert), but here, he really works well.

Uncanny X-Force #4

This month, Marvel put out Uncanny X-Force 5.1. The .1 books are supposed to be jumping on points for people who haven't read the books. While this works well in this case, I still HIGHLY recommend reading from issue 1. For starters, it's extremely well written. I hadn't read these books in years and I never felt lost. Also, the characters are spot on and you feel like you know them from the start. I've heard a lot of buzz on Remender in the past few years, particularly about his book Fear Agent, although his credits are pretty extensive. Been meaning to check out Fear Agent for some time and I definitely will now.

Another reason to start from the beginning is the art by Jermoe Opeña in the first 4 issues. His style is a perfect balance between realistic and darkly surreal. This is an all around great book and one I look forward to reading. Who knows, it may lead to me into more Marvel books. In any case, jump into it now. It's the perfect time.