Avengers Prime #1

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils: Alan Davis

Inks: Mark Farmer

On Shelves: June 2, 2010

With the coming of the “Heroic Age” I had in my mind an image where Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Thor were best of friends and most of the friction between these three that have plagued (to beautiful dramatic effect) the Marvel Universe for the last decade.  They might be playing poker together, hanging out, and being all warm and fuzzy with each other.  I enjoyed the friction and was thinking I was sorry to see it go with the end of Siege, which is what the Heroic Age has been touted as a little bit.

I’m happy to say that with Bendis’ Avengers Prime #1, all the rivalries we’ve come to expect from the holy trinity of Avengers is alive and well.  Steve and Tony seem truly ready to kill each other in this tale of the aftermath of the Siege.

Though the Avengers are helping Thor put Asgard back together, and they all have common purpose, Steve still blames Tony as the lynchpin for everything bad that has happened in the Marvel Universe, starting with the Civil War, handing power of S.H.I.E.L.D. over to Norman Osborne, and The Siege.

But it seems as though Thor couldn’t care less about any of that.  His father’s kingdom is in ruins and needs to be put back in place.  Unfortunately, someone else has other plans for them and they all end up being transported somewhere they didn’t expect to go and encountering a villain that is one of my favorites, but hasn’t been around in quite a while.

I really felt like this was a fun, compelling issue and it laid to rest any worries I had that the Heroic Age was going to take the teeth out of the characters I’ve come to love seeing argue, bicker, and fight.  In some ways, this book feels like Thor and the Warriors Two (Iron Man and Cap) and that works just fine for me.  I think Thor’s adventuring in the Nine Worlds are some of the best stories Marvel has ever told and while I’m sad to see that he’s not with the actual Warriors Three, it’s nice to see that he’ll be forging ahead with his two most favoured allies of Midgard.

This is a great book, Bendis is always a good read.  If he can keep this up and it turns into an adventure book with these three characters I’ll be reading this religiously.

This comic book review was brought to you by Dr. Volts Comic Connection.

Heat Vision Blog is reporting that Scottish actor James McAvoy will be playing a young Charles Xavier in the upcoming X-Men: First Class movie.

James McAvoy has signed on to play a young Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, in “X-Men: First Class,” which Matthew Vaughn is directing for Fox.

According to Fox, “First Class” will “chart the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Eric Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were the closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.”

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. I like James McAvoy just fine, but I just don’t see him as Professor X. Although I have been proven to be wrong in the past. I wasn’t big on Heath Ledger playing the Joker when it was first announced and look how that turned out.

This week, we review The Avengers #1 and try to hook some new readers coming into comics on the heels of Iron Man 2.  We also chide you once more to come to our LOST event.

In Magazine is kind enough to give us space each week in their print version to try to convert new comics readers and if you live anywhere in the Greater Salt Lake area, you should pick up a copy of the magazine on the newsstands.

As usual, you can read the online version of the article over here, and you can enlarge the image to read the laid out version below:

We know that Edgar Wright has been in talks for ages on an Ant-Man project, and we know that there has been more speculation of it recently.

To date, no one has really mentioned a cast, though knowing Edgar Wright’s relationship, I think we all sort of settled into the idea that Simon Pegg could play him and we’d all be happy with that.  But Marvelous News and Bleeding Cool are reporting from inside sources that sci-fi bad-ass Nathan Fillion has clenched the part and there should be an announcement soon, probably at Comic-Con.

“Nathan Fillion is pretty much locked to be Henry Pym, and should be announced before any other new additions to the cast (think around Comic Con)”

This little gem was buried in a larger article about a fellow named Kevin Pennington that I’ve never heard of.  Apparently, he’s inked a three picture deal with Marvel Studios to play some character of some sort that doesn’t involve covering his face with a mask.  That pretty much leaves out any major character, since Marvel’s modus operandi has been to ink their stars to 9 picture deals and most of the characters wear masks.

So…

That’s the word on the street.  I have no inside info on this (though I’m doing some checking and waiting for reports to come back), so I thought I’d report what was out there and let you guys talk about it.

So, apparently a while back Marvel held some sort of contest for fans to make a motion comic. One of the contestants who answered the call was John Griffith who put together the following entry, “The Strongest”, based on Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinnes’s “Puny Little Man” – and won.

This is a very well put together animation piece, and quite fun to watch, so check it out!

I know it’s been a while since my last colonoscopy– long story short, there were some malpractice hearings, and I was forced to hang up my colonoscopy scalpel until I agreed to wash my hands before procedures. Thankfully I was able to bribe the judge, and now I’m back!

First up: Nemesis

The new book from Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. It follows a criminal that hunts down law enforcement, and kills them in less than humane ways. (You know how to humanly kill someone? Well it’s even less humane than that.)
There really wasn’t much to the first issue, just a bunch of very bad ass things happening very rapidly, and then it ended. I would also like to mention that it ended on a very generic Mark Millar cliffhanger. (This is at least the third time he’s had the President of the United States humiliated in front of the world at the hands of his enemy.)
Basically I don’t have anything bad to say about this book, it was gory, quick, and fun to read. But not bad doesn’t mean good. Based on the first issue, I wouldn’t call it a must read. Whereas I thought Kick-Ass felt like a must read immediately. Although judging from past history, I’ve acquired some blind faith in Mark Millar, so I will definitely be picking up the next issue to see if it gets any better.

Overview: I wish Mark Millar would eat more fiber before coming into my office… His ass is as powerful as ever, but everything on the inside is indistinguishable mush. After today’s colonoscopy I’ve set two new rules: The first, that Mark Millar isn’t allowed to fart while on the table… Second while examining Mark Millar, goggles and turd galoshes are a must… You live and you learn.

Prognosis: The bunghole is in good order, my only problem is, I shouldn’t have to preform colonoscopies with a shop vac!

Next, Invisible

Before giving this comic a colonoscopy, I had to ask it if it was eating hamburger with its butt…. Written by the poor man’s Jeph Loeb, (Robert Kirkman), and illustrated by the illustrious Ryan Ottley.

Invisible is one of my favorite comic book series of all time. My only problem with the series is that now and again it’s known to hit a lull. I believe this is due to the fact that Robert Kirkman spreads himself too thin. (Haunt, Invisible, Astounding Wolf-man, Walking Dead, and I believe he’s also writing Archie?) To alleviate any misinterpretation I would like to lay it down really clearly. I am a huge fan of Robert Kirkman, I just think he is burned out lately and that the series is suffering for it. At this point I would fully support Judd Winick taking over for a few issues until Kirkman can get his groove back. Now, I’m not suggesting that Judd Winick could do any better, but simply that he couldn’t do any worse…

You don’t have to stop reading Invincible… it would be much easier to just lower your expectations –Slugtron

Overview: I would never suggest that Kirkman’s ass has any STD’s. Though I did make him sign a waver before leaving my office that he would agree not to have sex with anyone ever again without first giving them illicit warning that in seven days a little girl would likely walk through their television to murder them.

Prognosis: Thankfully there is a cure, the common butt plug.

And finally, Ultimate Avengers 2

In my opinion Mark Millar has a serious problem. He starts out series in the best way possible, and keeps making them better issue after issue, but then ultimately fails to procure an ultimate climax. This was a major problem for me with Ultimate Avengers 1. The first issue was great and by the fifth issue I thought it was one of the best books coming out… And then issue 6 rolled around… it resolved everything, but wasn’t a fraction as cool as any of the previous books in the series. He did the same thing for Old Man Logan. It was awesome, then awesomer, and then it was never awesome again.

Mark Millar books and sex with Dr.Cyborg sound like they have a lot in common.  –Slugtron

Ahem…. Thankfully, at times he’s been able to break this chain, Ultimates 1&2, Civil War, Ultimate X-men & Fantastic 4. Therefore, all I can do is hope that this series happens to be cool… But just like the pre-cogs, Mark Millar is very  capable of a false positive, and I worry.

Overview: I wake up in the morning and I go to work. My secretary tells me, “I tried to stop him, he wouldn’t listen.” I tell her to put on a pot of coffee and I walk into the office. I wasn’t surprised to see Mark Millar…again…  lying over my desk with his pants down. “Mark,” I said, “Pull up your pants, I just checked you out. You’re shit is exactly the same as the last time.” and I think that statement sums up how I feel about this new series.

Prognosis: I think Mark Millar has a very attractive ass-hole, but I’ve seen it so many times now it’s hard to get excited… down there.

Until next time, Keep those asses clean!

This week, in anticipation of Iron Man 2 tonight, I took a look at Demon in a Bottle for IN Magazine.

As usual, if you’re in the Greater Salt Lake area, you can pick up a copy on newsstands. You can read the online version here or you can read the print version below.

For those of you interested, you can get Demon in a Bottle at your local comic book store, or on Amazon.

Steven Spielberg’s D-Day epic Saving Private Ryan is heading to Blu-ray, today.  This is a pretty good film, but it’s reputation is much better than it deserves.  Like I said, it’s pretty good, but it’s not great.  It’s overly long and some of the casting and script choices were questionable at best.  If you want a really great war film from the same year, I would suggest Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line.  Where Saving Private Ryan is the terse prose of war, The Thin Red Line is elegant poetry.  According to Amazon, Criterion is putting out a Blu-ray of it some time in the future, and that’s one I’m more excited for than just about anything.  But as far as Ryan goes, the only thing that gets into “great” territory is the D-Day invasion, and seeing it on Blu-ray is a must.

What I think is the third greatest of David Lean’s epics (behind Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai) Doctor Zhivago comes out on Blu-ray.  Blu-ray is exactly the format that suits Lean best and this is a movie that is perfect for it.  It’s a sweeping epic with frames so dense with information, I daresay you’ll get more out of a release like this than the DVD.

In the geek department today, comes the fifth volume of the 90s X-Men cartoon series and the fifth volume of Wolverine and the X-men.  We should have full reviews up soon, but be sure to check out the contest we have going to give away a copy of the X-Men, along with the complete series of the 1994 Iron Man cartoon, which also comes out today.

I’m also terribly interested to see Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro, starring Vincent Gallo.  I want to see what Coppola does in his quest for “small, personal” films.  They’re just so damned hard to catch.  His last, Youth Without Youth, starring Eric Roth, was here and gone in a flash and I haven’t picked up a DVD of that yet, either.  But you should check it out if you feel so inclined.

The last thing on my list today is a four pack Turner Classic Movies war collection.  It contains one of my favorite movies ever, Gunga Din, as well as Battle of the Bulge, The Dawn Patrol and Operation Pacific.  Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. all together in one set for less than $20, that’s simply a deal you can’t beat.

So Wolverine and Spider-Man are trapped together in the late cretaceous and living amongst early man and dinosaurs… Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? Well, it’s the beginning of The Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine by By Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert.

This issue was beautifully rendered and the character writing was good, the story was a bit absurd. Somehow while foiling a bank robbery Peter and Logan find themselves in the dinosaur era , but living among early man. Now, I’ll try to ignore the fact that man and dinosaurs never co-existed. I’ll just assume in the Marvel 616 Universe they did and move on to the next point: This comic didn’t really feel like it went anywhere. It was fun to read, Wolverine and Spider-Man were certainly in character and on topic, but the story raised two questions at the beginning of the book and proceeded to raise them over and over again so there was no real surprise left at the end of the book. A question Peter asks Logan on page 3 is the obvious payoff for the end of the book and it just felt like the whole thing was on mute or something. It wasn’t all that terribly exciting. I felt next to no suspense. And it’s hard to put characters as iconic as Wolverine and Spider-Man, set them up in a mini-series, and get me to forget that everything is going to turn out just fine.

Aside from that, the set-up for the book feels like the next five issues in the series could be fun to read, but not if they’re as tedious and go so far to say so little as this one did.

Jason Aaron has done good work, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. And let’s be honest, this is Spider-Man and Wolverine together, it’s not like my opinion of the book is going to talk anybody out of buying it, but I’m just offering my perspective. I’m really just glad it didn’t have anything to do with Deadpool. That guy is overexposed to all hell.

This book hits news stands and comic book stores everywhere on Wednesday.

Weekly Marvel comics reviews are brought to us by Dr. Volts Comics in Salt Lake City.

Who is excited for the Thor movie next year? I sure as hell am! Espcially after the last couple of days. Yesterday Latino Review had posted a set pic from their “spy” on the Thor movie set of Destroyer. Destroyer is an enchanted armor that Odin builds to contain his power to fight the celestials. Here is the picture of it:

Then earlier today Marvel posted what appears to be an official movie still released by Marvel and Paramount studios showing us our first look at Chris Hemsworth as Thor!

After seeing these two images and how awesome they are I don’t know if I can wait a whole year for the movie, which is set to release May 6th 2011!

UPDATE:  These have been all around the internet, but someone pointed out that there are images of Thor’s Hammer, Mjolnir, from Iron Man 2 floating about.  So…  Uh…  Here is one: