Comic Musings – Page 3

Not A Fantastic Trailer

I’ve seen the new Fantastic Four trailer… I don’t feel like embedding it here.

To be honest, I’m not really feeling this one. The performances feel a bit flat, the special effects are not all that great, the new Silver Surfer looks worse than the old Silver Surfer from the old movies, and there’s no chemistry among the cast, which paints a grim picture when this is supposed to be one big happy family.

I don’t know… can I just go back to the old movies? Maybe get in touch with Roger Corman’s estate and get his version of FF available to the masses? I mean, if you want me to say something positive, it’s not Fan Four Stick from 2015, but that’s a very, VERY low bar to surpass.

It’s a bit of a shame too, because I actually do dig the retro-futuristic vibe of the world they’re living in, I like how we’re going into this at a point where the Fantastic Four are already hailed as heroes and this is basically their toughest challenge yet. There’s just enough there that I actually want to find something to look forward to with this one… but at the same time, after two trailers, I come away less enthusiastic about this film than I was before. And that’s without diving into some of the creative choices behind certain aspects or some of the press stuff that has people in a fit, which… look, I generally don’t care about that stuff. All I care about is a movie that’s entertaining and if I get that much, I’m satisfied.

So, yeah… I’m not ready to throw the towel on this yet. At best, this is looking to be “straight to DVD” for me, but maybe a final trailer is what I need to really be excited for this thing. It’d be nice to be excited for a Marvel movie; I haven’t been that way for a while.

I don’t know… we’ll see, I suppose.

Chapter 394,939 Of I Stopped Caring About Marvel Ages Ago (But Andor Is Good)

I’m going to spare you the usual rhetoric about how my interest in the Marvel movie stuff ended with Endgame. I’ve said that bit countless times and I don’t think I’m going to do much by repeating what’s been said before. I keep an eye on things, but nothing that outright piques my interest. Even the new Daredevil series – which I’ve heard good things about – didn’t really bat an eye.

However, someone sent me a digital gift card for Disney Plus recently as a “get well soon” gift. And look, I’m not going to lie. I’m still not a fan of the Disney Plus interface… but I’ll make use of it if someone is going to foot the bill in this case.

So rather than watch any of the new Marvel stuff, I’ve been rewatching old episodes of Home Improvement, the Tim Allen comedy series from the 90s. It was fun revisiting that show.

My brother also suggested that I’d give Andor a shot… and I caught the first three episodes of the show… and I actually enjoyed it… honestly, doing a prequel series to a Star Wars side story where the entire cast of that movie dies at the end (sorry if I spoiled the movie for everybody) seems like a bit of a silly thing, but goddamned if I wasn’t hooked on this show. Part of it has to do with the fact that, much like Rogue One, it doesn’t really on the usual Jedi/Sith stuff. This is more grounded stuff, depicting life under the Empire’s rule.

Three episodes in and this is a damned fine show… and not even by the lowly Star Wars standards of the modern product. I mean this is REALLY good stuff. So good that I’m almost tempted to give Rogue One another watch one of these days… now if that isn’t high praise, then I don’t know what is.

I’m Reading “Some” Comics… But Mostly “Old” Stuff

For whatever it’s worth… and honestly, I don’t want to make a big stink out of this; I’m merely posting this for the sake of posting anything on this blog on a daily basis… but yes, I’ve been reading some recent comics as of late… although realistically, I’m re-reading a lot of the older stuff that I’ve still got laying around. My only real follows nowadays is the current Power Rangers and TMNT comics… I’ve recently concluded the first arcs of DC’s initial wave of Absolute comics and will probably stop there for the moment… I’ll probably get back on those somewhere down the line and maybe I’ll touch on these in future musings or reviews, but for now, I’m mostly sticking with Prime and IDW’s second TMNT output.

But most of all, I’ve just been re-reading some of the old stuff that I’ve got laying around. Some of the stuff I still held on to, some of the ol’ digital stuff I got from Comixology before the changeover to Amazon (which I resent, because Comixology had a pretty functional and easy-to-use comic reader whereas Amazon… doesn’t), and also a few other things that I’ve got laying around and am not quite sure how I have these… there’s been a lot of that lately, let’s be honest.

Anyhoo… I don’t know if this is going to lead to more comic talk or possibly even more reviews beyond the restoring of the old shit from decades ago… but it’s one more thing to keep me busy.

I guess.

Screen Rant Is Worthless…

Why is it that whenever I look up news for a specific franchise – let’s say Power Rangers, for example – most of the search results are glorified opinion pieces from Screen Rant. If there’s an article that has the brilliant clickbait headline of “30 Year Mystery Solved” or whatever the case may be, they’re usually referencing something from the comics… which generally exist in their own little world independent of the TV continuity.

Screen Rant has a lot of these pointless articles that feel like I’m actually getting dumber with each passing word I read from that site. I get that it’s a site called Screen Rant, but none of these articles come across as “ranting.” They’re just rambling nonsense. I know quite a bit about that. I’ve done that myself. It’s not something that you should be paying for as either a consumer or an employer.

Please, do me a favor. If you want to reference something my way, please don’t let it be from Screen Rant. I will just ignore you. Thanks.

About Prime…

I haven’t made mention of it as of late because I really didn’t want to say anything until I had anything substantial to say, but for those wondering, I have been reading the Power Rangers Prime reboot comic book thing. As a matter of fact, I’m still reading the book, which should tell you volumes about where I’m at with this book. Is it as good as people say? Not sure I want to go that far, but it is good enough to keep my attention and readership for the foreseeable future… which, again, speaks volumes.

Right now, I’m holding off actually saying anything until I’m fairly confident that we’re done with what’s essentially the “first chapter” of this new series. I’ve written some notes here and there, but I don’t want to jump too deep into this until I’ve read more story and who knows how long that’s going to be. Once that’s done, I’ll probably sum my feelings in the form of a PR Reflections post somewhere down the line.

Anyway, this is a post to let you know that I’m reading Prime. I’m been reading Prime since it started. While I have some thoughts on Prime, I’m not quite ready to articulate those thoughts to printed word… not yet anyway…

Keeping Out Of Hell’s Kitchen

So I’ve heard good things about the new Daredevil relaunch series, Born Again. Apparently, despite all the production troubles that plagued the series, the first few episodes supposedly continue to set the bar established by the original three-season run on Netflix.

I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet… my disdain for the Disney+ platform is the main culprit of this omission, but there is a small part of me that almost wishes that I’d bite the bullet and give the show a watch.

Keyword being “almost.”

Still, glad to hear that the show is up to the standards of its predecessor. And from what few clips I’ve seen of the show, it definitely looks the part, so I’m pretty optimistic that things will go well.

It Took Them Six Years To Make A Rise Of Skywalker Comic Book

Source: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-1-preview-reys-sith-showdown/

Yes, six years after the last Star Wars movie disappointed movie goers, Marvel is putting out a comic book adaptation. Why we needed six years for a comic that was just going to rehash old territory is beyond me, but there you go. I suppose this is their way of trying to make sense of what that movie was even supposed to be.

Too little, too late, I’m afraid.

Fourth Time’s The Charm… I guess?

The trailer for the upcoming Fantastic Four movie… which is, what, the fourth take on bringing these characters a quality film?

So, there was the unreleased Roger Corman film from the 90s that only saw bootlegs out in the wild and it is a Roger Corman film – cheaply efficient and efficiently cheap. Then came the Tim Story-directed duology of the 2000s that I thought were okay for the most part… and if nothing else, gave a young Chris Evans some pocket change before he played a more famous Marvel Super Hero. And then there was Fan-4-Stick or whatever that 2015 version was called… that was atrocious in every conceivable metric possible.

And now we’ve got this… which kinda… sorta… looks the part… I do like the retro-futuristic look of the whole thing… but I don’t know… for some reason I’m not really feeling this one. I want to like this. I want to give this a chance. It looks distinct and not at all rehashed from the usual Marvel Studios table scraps that comprise the post-Endgame output… but I’ve got this… I don’t know, call it a “Spider-Sense” if you will… that this might not be as glossy as the exterior seems to be.

I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again until the sun dies out – I lost interest in anything Marvel after Endgame and probably saw one or two things at most. Everything else seems like “been there, done that” and anything that seems remotely different ends up being not. I want to say that I’m looking forward to the next Captain America move – I enjoyed Sam Wilson as a character and want to see that character grow and evolve – but I’m not quite confident that this is going to match the quality of past films. Same deal with Born Again; I enjoyed the old Daredevil show and this looks to be along those same lines, but Born Again was subject to reshoots and overhauls and I’m not quite confident that this will be as good as that earlier work.

So… eh, I don’t know. Hopefully, this Fantastic Four fourmake will be good and all my worrying is for naught… but Marvel hasn’t exactly had the best track record as of late and I’m afraid this won’t change things for the better. Still, wait and see seems to be the best approach.

Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in theaters July 2025.

The ‘Verse Is Dead. Bury It. No Mercy.

There was a Superman TV spot. People were complaining about some guy’s face looking too much like CG. And then they go, “James Guns sucks, bro! Let’s bring back the Snyderverse! They gave us Justice League. Surely, they’ll drop everything to have Zack Snyder come back and continue feeding us our table scraps! Restore the Snyderverse, I say. HASH TAG RESTORE THE SNYDERVERSE.

Yeah… no, thanks. I’m good.

They had their chance. It didn’t pan out. Now it’s someone else’s turn to play in the toybox. Zack Snyder’s doing fine with his pseudo-Star Wars rip-off stuff or whatever you call that Rebel Moon stuff. The DC Universe stuff will be business as usual. I’m actually looking forward to a Superman movie rather than rolling my eyes in contempt. Besides, if restoring the Snyderverse means losing this…

Then I want nothing to do with that shit, man.

The SnyderVerse is dead.

Bury it.

And yes, it did bleed.

A Broken Diamond

The recent news of longtime comics distributor Diamond Comics Distribution going into bankruptcy has obviously sent some shockwaves throughout the comics industry, with the obvious question being how this will invariably affect comic book shops. Naturally, you’re concerned for all those folks who could potentially lose their jobs as a result of this and you want to hope for the best.

I know people who go to shops. My brother regularly goes to the comic shop in town and is good friends with the owners, who have been around for a very long time now. I wonder how they’re going to cope with this news. I hope that this doesn’t affect them too much and they’re able to continue onwards. I want to believe that, but Diamond was such a major part of this comic book machine that there could be further damage done to the industry as a result of this, whether it affects the people who sell the comics or the small-time publishers who rely on Diamond to get their stuff out.

This is going to be the true test for the comic book industry, an industry that has thrived for almost a century and has provided us with countless volumes worth of entertainment. Regardless of your thoughts on their output these days, you want to believe that the people involved will come out of this stronger than ever. You want this industry to thrive and survive because otherwise… well, I’d really hate to contemplate.