Review: Batman: Knight and Squire

Due to my review backlog, it's been a while since I actually read the work I am about to review. Thankfully enough, it was pretty memorable. Batman: Knight and Squire, written by Paul Cornell with art by Jimmy Broxton, is a six-issue miniseries telling of the adventures of Batman and Robin's British counterparts. You've got Knight, a.k.a. Sir Cyril Sheldrake, and his lovely sidekick Squire, a.k.a. Beryl Hutchinson. Both are legacy characters, in that Cyril's father and grandfather both previously bore the title of Knight, and Squire inherited her own title from Cyril and Cyril's father. As a side-note, the only place that Batman appears in this book is on the front page- in the title. Otherwise, despite getting the umbrella title, the Dark Knight is nowhere in sight in this book. But a certain other character in the Batman mythos shows his face in the latter stages of the story.

Superhero shenanigans in England are a bit more off-kilter than they are on our side of the pond. Firstly, you've got a bar where both English superheroes and supervillains meet to shoot the breeze, guaranteed by "truce magic." Then there's the Morris Men, portrayed as ninja-like troublemakers, and Jarvis Poker, the British Joker, and the various other superheroes who patrol England. These include Salt of the Earth, Milkman, and Squire's new boyfriend, reformed villain Shrike. At first, all seems well in merry England... but not for long.

Batman: Knight and Squire is built largely on humor and zany action-adventure. Every other panel has a throwaway gag involving some obscure British pop-cultural reference, helpfully explained at the end of each issue. Most of the stories don't take themselves too seriously. As it progresses, however, the series slowly eases out of humorous antics into more serious territory, with everything coming to a crescendo at the end of the second-to-last issue. The whole series is a homage to and reconstruction of goofy Silver Age yarns, before doing a 180 into a grim-and-gritty, high-stakes crime thriller. If this sounds jarring and abrupt, fear not, gentle reader. While there is a significant tone shift after issue five, the characters maintain their personalities, communicating to the audience (metaphorically, of course) that they're just as surprised and confused about the sudden turn of events as they are.

Knight and Squire's London is much more equivalent to the Gotham City of Batman '66 than to anything else. The titular characters of the book are local celebrities who routinely appear on TV talk shows and are featured in the tabloids. Likewise, supervillains do little in the way of actual crime, with even the most preeminent among them, such as Jarvis Poker, pulling little more than harmless pranks. Supervillains can be found hanging out in convenience stores while Beryl grabs a magazine. Cyril dates pop stars, consulting with his American butler Hank after a breakup. It may sound a bit surreal, but on reading it, it is actually quite amusing.

My favorite installment in the series was definitely issue three, in which scientists use cloning technology to resurrect Richard III, who promptly starts speaking in iambic pentameter before embarking on a plot to conquer England through... Twitter? Well, they don't actually call it "Twitter," but still, it's pretty funny. It's madcap fun like this that reminds me of what Booster Gold needs to be more like, or of what I'm sure Justice League International was like, or even of what Silver Age Superman was like. Honestly, I'm surprised that Chris Sims isn't all over this book. This particular brand of comic book adventure is just the sort of thing that will appeal to fans of Doctor Who and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Incidentally, Paul Cornell actually wrote a few episodes of Doctor Who.

To summarize, Batman: Knight and Squire is an eccentric, fun-filled romp through British pop-culture which any anglophile will appreciate. Oddly enough, however, one of my only two real complaints is that it relies on its British pop-culture references a little too much. My other complaint is that the ending is a bit too abrupt and unresolved, like they were trying as quickly as possible to wrap the story up. Even one more issue to stretch things out would have made things a bit better. But as it is, it's a fun little story which showcases two of my favorite minor comic book characters. Tally ho, gents!

RATING: 7.5/10

Image courtesy of amazon.com

Review: Road to Marvel's the Avengers

Note: After a week-long vacation in an undisclosed location, I have now returned to blogging. Please return to enjoy this blog post. Also, congratulations to my grandparents, Pat and Jeanne Sweeney, on their 50th wedding anniversary! Also, congratulations to the blog for this, the 275th post!

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This book is bad.

I just wanted to get that out there. Not only is it bad, it's boring, unoriginal, predictable, and stupid. To be totally accurate, it is precisely because of these latter deficiencies that it is bad. I originally put this collection on my graphic novel to-read list because I wanted to get the whole story on The Avengers. What I read only cemented my belief that everything we saw in the films leading up to that glorious cinematic spectacle was more than enough. I'm sure that whoever was writing this carp was just doing their job, but the least Marvel could do is get some actually good writers to put out actually good promotion material meant to represent and advertise their actually good movies.

Road to Marvel's the Avengers collects all of the cheap-as-Hades tie-in comic books that were put out to generate buzz for Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... as if they needed anymore. We're treated to a full on, word-for-word comic book rendition of Iron Man, and background and backstory on Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Dr. Abraham Erskine, and Johann Schmidt. We're also told exactly how Black Widow infiltrated Stark International in order to become Tony's new personal assistant.

If any or all of this sounds even remotely exciting and compelling, let me assure you, it's not.

The Iron Man stuff takes up roughly half of the book, and is basically a poorly rendered version of the film of the same name, plus some stuff showing Iron Man doing his thing in-between Iron Man and Iron Man 2. This latter part is particularly dull, depicting Tony fighting... people with guns in the Congo, I guess, and Tony using his Iron Man armor to impress the ladies. At the very least, it guest stars General Ross from The Incredible Hulk, and I just love that guy.

The problem with the Iron Man stuff is that it tries too hard to be the movie. The comic book rendition of the film (titled "I Am Iron Man!") is word-for-word, scene-for-scene, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was shot-for-shot too. "I Am Iron Man!" manages to capture the basic skeletal structure of the film, but has none of its substance or style. This, I think, is the problem with book-of-the-film tie-ins, or comic-book-of-the-film tie-ins, or any kind of tie-in which recycles the film for that matter: It often leaves the writer with no room for originality, essentially copying the script. As a result, this comic feels nothing like the movie, despite all of its effort to do so.

The other Iron Man stuff has a similar problem, combined with a hackneyed and stale plot. It's obviously trying to ape the pseudo-cleverness of Iron Man 2, and unlike "I Am Iron Man!", it actually succeeds in emulating the film. Considering considering that Iron Man 2 is widely considered to be the weakest film in the MCU, however, that's a patently terrible strategy, if only in hindsight. I can only imagine how fans who were gearing up for Iron Man 2 felt when they read this monstrosity. If I were in their shoes back then, however, I would have prayed to the most high God with all my heart that the movie was nothing like this comic. Paradoxically, the tone of this comic was spot on in regards to its reflection of the movie, yet somehow much, much worse. (For the record, I found Iron Man 2 to be an enjoyable flick, though admittedly not as good as its fellow MCU films. I hope to complete my Iron Man set of reviews and review it sometime.) At any rate, the only good thing about it was its exploration of the dynamic between Tony and his father, but while that was an oasis of good stuff in a wasteland of mediocrity and awfulness, it is far overshadowed by what we actually saw in the dadblamed movie.

The final bit of stuff related to Iron Man 2 promotion is a story with Black Widow. This story's tone shift early on is jarring, to say the least, going from crazy Mission Impossible/Die Hard/James Bond-esque stuff to a drama version of The Office. What I mean is, we literally see Black Widow jumping out of an exploding plane before going to apply at the Stark International corporate office. The whole time, she's using this awful, grating inner dialogue where she complains about "American inefficiency" (Clearly, the writer did not do his research when writing a defector from Soviet Russia) and the idiosyncrasies of office work. I imagine that under a different, actually competent writer, it would have been pretty darn funny to see Black Widow trying to navigate office politics without seriously injuring someone, but no, that's not what happens. What happens is a dry, humorless story which should have been very entertaining, maybe even interesting. But it is instead very boring, and only succeeds in persuading us that we really did not need to know the answer to the question it poses, that question being, "How did Black Widow infiltrate Stark International?" It's a perfect example of wasting a perfectly good plot.

As if things couldn't get any worse, we are then treated to a similar fill-in-the-blanks plot with the stuff for Captain America: The First Avenger. The story constantly shifts between a generic Cap-fighting-in-World-War-Two stuff and pre-Captain America Steve Rogers training with Bucky. Ordinarily, this would be fantastic stuff, showing Steve and Bucky growing up together. However, it's stifled by the stupid generic Cap-fighting-in-World-War-Two stuff and showing Johann Schmidt's story. (It's not that I have a problem with stuff showing Cap fighting in World War Two, but it's because it's so generic and careless in presentation that I found it to be intolerable.) The basic premise of this comic, in the same vein as televised tripe such as Smallville and perhaps even the upcoming Gotham is to show how our heroes and villains came to be the way they are. There's just one problem: Devoting a whole series, or even a miniseries, to answering that question gets really old really fast. I mean, how many times do you really want to see Steve getting pounded on in an alley before Bucky shows up to be a street fighting badbutt? (And remember, Bucky's supposed to be the sidekick.) Steve's story is basically what this series is, and while it's fairly compelling, it's not the stuff of great comics, because we already know what's going to happen. That's why we have origin stories, not origin series.

The stuff with the Red Skull and Dr. Erskine also had tons of potential, but whoever is writing this carp failed to capitalize on it. The Red Skull is shown in his days as plain old Johann Schmidt, who was apparently some random Hitler-groupie who got noticed by Heinrich Himmler and landed a position in the Waffen SS. The Red Skull's role in the plot is particularly interesting because he was so underdeveloped in the flipping movie. This comic could have been a chance to greatly redeem him as a character, delving into exactly why he wants to take over the world while parading about in an all black leather wardrobe. Unfortunately, despite one or two pretty great scenes with Johann Schmidt, we're mostly left in the dark (again) about these details. There's also a few scenes where Dr. Abraham Erskine is show trying and failing to escape to Switzerland with his family, and that really showed Dr. Erskine's selfless nature. He gets captured by Schmidt, but his manner of escape is blatantly ripped off from the Hong Kong scene in The Dark Knight of all things. And he gets put in his place in the hierarchy of morality by Peggy Carter of all people. Once again, plenty of potential, but poor execution.

Finally, there are a handful of stories focusing on people like Nick Fury and Agent Phil Coulson. These stories should have been awesome, but they failed spectacularly, thanks in part to ugly, ill-suited art, but mostly in part due to crudely put together story. None of the characters sound like their movie selves. Heck, they barely even look like their movie selves. What's particularly galling, however, is that these are the characters who, like Rhodey, Pepper, Bucky, and Dr. Erskine, would have benefited the most from tie-in comics. Instead, they all get this half-baked super-spy nonsense. A terrible shame, really.

In sum, I checked out Road to Marvel's the Avengers in an effort to enhance my appreciation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was disappointed by what I found, and am now reconsidering my plans to check out Fury's Big Week, another lead-up to The Avengers. What I found in this wholly ill-conceived trade paperback was bland characterizations, contorted dialogue, and a worse plot, which, combined with several details contradicted by the films, make for an altogether dull, uninspired story. Please don't add this to your personal library. It's bad enough that it made it into my local public one.

RATING: 5/10

Image courtesy of wired.com

Spider-Man: The Greatest Superhero in Comics

Web-slinger. Spidey. Web-head. "Masked menace." Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

We all know the story. Or at least, we all should know. It was plastered on the big screen on no less than two occasions, plus all the comics and TV shows. Peter Parker was an Ordinary High School Student. But when he went to that science lab and got bitten by a radioactive spider, he gained the proportionate strength, speed, and agility of a spider, plus a sort of sixth-sense that allows him to detect danger (dubbed "spider sense"). At first, he did what any real teenager would do: He used his powers to make money. But when his Uncle Ben was murdered by some random jerkhole whom Peter could have stopped earlier, Peter decided to take his Uncle Ben's admonition that "With great power there must also come great responsibility," and use his powers to help people. Thus, Spider-Man was born!

My bold declaration in the title of this post may have many of you wondering. Surely the lowly Spider-Man is not the world's greatest superhero? Does not that title belong to Superman? What about Captain America, or even Batman? Let me assure you that I stand firm in my conviction. Superman may be the world's most well known ("iconic") superhero, and Batman and his associates may be my personal favorites, but Spider-Man is still the best. Why? If you want a really good reason, go to Comics Alliance and find Chris Sims' article on the subject. My take, however, is a bit different. The thing about Spider-Man, about Peter Parker, is the whole "With great power comes great responsibility" thing. It may sound clichéd, but it is in fact pretty original. Spider-Man was the first real superhero that Stan Lee and co. actually wrote. The Fantastic Four were more like a team of adventurers, and the Hulk was just a rampaging monster, but Spider-Man was genuine superhero, when the superhero comic was still relatively young. I could go on about how this reflected Marvel and DC's differing modus operandi, but I'll leave that to Mr. Sims. The point here is that Spider-Man was specifically setting out to help people. Not to ruthlessly target crime like Batman, or to routinely save the world and circumvent disaster like Superman, though he has done that. He doesn't even do it to fight supervillains, though he does that a lot. Spider-Man's core purpose is to use his powers responsibly, and to him, that means helping people and doing the right thing, no matter what.

Of course, this trait alone is not enough to make Spider-Man the greatest superhero in comics. At least, not without elaboration. When Spider-Man was created, he was, as mentioned, an ordinary high school student. A teenager. Back in the day (that is, 1962), it was a pretty novel idea to have a teenage superhero headlining his own book. Before that, teenagers and other younger characters were seen as only worthy of being sidekicks. (Stan Lee, for the record, hated sidekicks.) When Spider-Man became unexpectedly and outrageously popular after first appearing in Amazing Fantasy #15, pop culture became awash in teenaged heroes, so much so that the character has become even more clichéd than "With great power comes great responsibility." (On a side note, it was also a pretty novel idea to have the story being set specifically in New York City, as opposed to some generic, made up metropolitan area.) The point is that Spider-Man does what he does, the right thing, no matter what, in the context of having to deal with all the normal problems that teenagers have. And by normal problems, I mean the feeling that everyone reading this got as a teen that the world's out to get them. The genius here, however, is that for Peter Parker, he has actual life-threatening situations to counterbalance perceived life-threatening situations. He's got midterms, girl trouble, an ailing aunt, adults who hate him for some reason, money problems, the whole nine yards, plus criminals, killers, supervillains who have a personal fixation on killing him, the media, and the general public, who all hate him.

The thing is, though, the things going on in his personal life are generally a lot more stressful and angst inducing for Peter than Kraven the Hunter trying to drive a spear through his torso. Just like a real teenager would. A real teenager, if granted the power of Spider-Man, would get cocky and have fun, like Spider-Man does. Chris Sims notes that Peter Parker's activities as Spider-Man is a way for him to "cut loose" and relax. That's why he cracks jokes, makes fun of his enemies, and relishes in hand-to-hand combat with unabashed glee. This is made abundantly clear in Ultimate Spider-Man when Peter decides to quit being Peter Parker, having come to the conclusion that everything's fine when he's Spider-Man, and that it's his personal life that's giving him all the trouble. Of course, this leads to an imbalance in his life as Spider-Man, nearly leading to disastrous consequences from neglecting his personal life. All of this makes it even more important to remember that whenever Spider-Man is despairing over a battle with his villains, stuff just got real. Because normally, an episode of Spider-Man's crime fighting adventures is another exciting interlude in the personal drama of Peter Parker's hapless mundane life. He doesn't have Batman or Iron Man's lax, luxurious secret identity, or the sheer, raw power and charisma of Superman. Peter doesn't even have a team of super-powered buddies to help him out every now and then (except when he does, such as when he's serving with the Avengers). And yet... he does the right thing. Because of all of this, Spider-Man is the first superhero to ever achieve something that all previous superheroes had not: He was able to make the reader relate to him.

Most importantly of all, however, is that Peter Parker does not stay an angsty teenager. He grows up. He matures. He lives life. He falls in love. He gets married. (See One More Day) He doesn't grow older than, say, 30, this being comic books, but he does go from boy to man. Peter Parker goes from insecure, petulant child to noble, strong, heroic young man. And he is a man, because, say it with me, "With great power, there must also come great responsibility." Similarly, Winston Churchill said, "A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality." In light of this, if there ever was a man, it is Spider-Man.

Spider-Man's greatness is also helped by the fact that he has, as Mr. Sims has observed, the best supporting cast in comics. Aunt May, Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy, Captain George Stacy, Flash Thompson, Robbie Robertson, and all the rest of them. And while not having the best rogues gallery around (that honor goes to Batman), he does have a quite memorable set of villains, including the Green Goblin, Doctor Octupus, Venom, Sandman, and the Vulture. I'd go on, but it's a bit beyond the scope of this post.

As hard to believe as it may seem, I've actually been into Spider-Man a lot longer than I've been into Batman. I remember borrowing the 2002 Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie from my Aunt when I was a kid, though my parents wouldn't let me watch it until a couple of years later. I still have fond memories of that movie, the original Raimi film holding a special place in my heart, kind of like Jean-Paul Valley. I remember pouring over Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide, which, I'm sad to say, is the only exposure to the original comics that I've really had. (The originals are on my list, don't worry!) This in turn led me to read Ultimate Spider-Man, which I read faithfully until Prelude to Death of Spider-Man. I intend to return to it later, but I was thrown for a loop by certain plotting decisions that the esteemed Brian Michael Bendis made. On the other hand, it's worth noting that TVTropes refers to Ultimate Spider-Man #1 as the beginning of the Modern Age of Comics. I just find it difficult to believe that 10+ years worth of comics happened in a little over 1 year. They didn't even show the seasons changing! But I'm getting off track...

I've only read a little bit of the main continuity Spider-Man (such as the woefully messy Spider-Island crossover.), and I don't think much of the new stuff. I've been wanting to check out Scarlet Spider and the original stories, plus The Superior Spider-Man, which I heard was good, but I haven't had much interest in reading post-One More Day stuff. Then again, Chris Sims has gone on record saying that Brand New Day initiated a long overdue shake up in Spider-Man's status quo, but we'll get back to that later.

Spider-Man has appeared in many other media besides the many comic book series, with two movie series, multiple animated series (one of which I wrote a review on in the early history of this blog, The Spectacular Spider-Man), a short-lived live action television series, and even a Broadway musical! For the record, Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man was decidedly underwhelming, and I haven't heard good things about its sequel, leaving me hesitant to embrace it.

A final question must be addressed concerning the topic of Spider-Man: If Spider-Man is, in fact, the greatest superhero in comics, then why do I prefer Batman and associates? I guess it's because the Batman mythos harbors another character similar to yet very different from Spider-Man: Tim Drake. I'm primarily a DC man, and I'll always cast my sword with Batman and his associates in that regard. I like Batman, Tim Drake's Robin, and Jean-Paul Valley's Azrael because they've got this edge to them, this "cool" factor. Spider-Man may be more fun, but Batman is more cool. Nevertheless, I'd like to make clear that Spider-Man is really the only Marvel hero that I've ever particularly liked. I intend to get into Thor later, and maybe Captain America, but for now, Spider-Man is my only hero at Marvel. But perhaps that will change someday. In the meantime, Thwip!

Image courtesy of designyoutrust.com

Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Steve Rogers is doing okay.

After being frozen in ice for 70-plus years and surviving an alien invasion in New York during the events of The Avengers, Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, is doing alright for himself. He's working as a professional good guy at S.H.I.E.L.D. with his Avengers gal pal Black Widow, living in Washington, D.C. where he runs 13 miles daily, and he's made at least one new friend, a VA worker named Sam Wilson. He's integrating into the modern world fairly well, and has even reestablished contact with his now elderly former lady-love, Peggy Carter. Life is... not bad. At least he doesn't have post-traumatic stress disorder like fellow Avengers alumni Tony Stark.

But then stuff hits the fan, and stuff gets real.

It all starts when Steve's boss, Colonel Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., is locked out of important, top secret files. Troubled and suspicious, Fury seeks out Alexander Pierce, a senior S.H.E.L.D. leader, to delay the upcoming Project Insight. This project, theoretically, would use three new helicarriers to target criminals and terrorists before they have a chance to strike, which Captain America isn't too happy about. "This isn't freedom," Steve says to Fury. "This is fear." Fury is then critically wounded by a team of assailants led by the mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Just before the wounded Fury gives Steve a thumbdrive containing the aforementioned top secret files, he whispers to him, "Don't trust anyone." Steve must work with Black Widow, a.k.a. Natasha Romanoff, Sam, and Maria Hill to stop the Winter Soldier's deadly mission, figure just what the heck is going on with Project Insight, and foil the real villain's dastardly plans.

Okay, I just want to be clear, and I'm not gonna lie: This movie is awesome. Resoundingly so. I'd even say that it's resounding in its awesomeness. But empty praise tells little. What makes this movie so great? Without a doubt, I'd say that it's the best installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, up there with Iron Man and The Avengers. My personal favorite remains Thor, but Captain America: The Winter Soldier is undoubtedly the best.

But again, why? Firstly, this movie is constituted of some incredible acting talent. Everybody from Chris Evans as Captain America to Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce to Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury to Emily VanCamp as Agent 13 gives it their all in this picture. It's on the level of the The Dark Knight Saga in terms of sheer star power. It's just as much Fury and Black Widow's movie as it is Cap's. Even the guy who plays the Winter Soldier (I won't tell you who it is because, you know, spoilers. Also, don't Google "Winter soldier". You'll get immediate spoilers.), despite not actually being the main villain, totally kills it. It all adds up to the believable performances coalescing together with the remarkable onscreen chemistry to produce nothing short of brilliance.

Speaking of killing, we've got a lot of cool, killer action sequences which keep you on the edge of your seat. Beginning with the boat skirmish at the beginning between Cap, Black Widow, and the S.H.I.E.L.D./S.T.R.I.K.E. agents and Batroc (Georges St-Pierre, whom we previously saw in Sherlock Holmes, which starred Robert Downey, Jr.), and ending with the climactic battle between Captain America and the Winter Soldier aboard one of the helicarriers, these are some really cool action scenes. But the real thrills from this movie don't come from the fights and explosions; they come from the suspense.

To understand this faucet of the film, we must first understand that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is just as much political thriller as it is superhero action-adventure flick. More accurately, I believe that the writers said that it was a political thriller disguised as a superhero action-adventure flick, just as Captain America: The First Avenger was a throwback to pulpy World War 2 adventure movies disguised as a superhero movie. There's a lot of stuff in this movie that will make you go, "Whoa, I did not see that coming." It's intelligent and relevant in its sociopolitical commentary, asking hard-hitting questions about freedom, security, patriotism, heroism, trust, and friendship. One particularly heart-pounding scene features Steve and Natasha unearthing a devastating revelation about S.H.I.E.L.D. that rocks them to the core. The only explosions that took place in it were after everything else had happened... not that I don't like stuff blowing up, it's just that there's been a lot of it in superhero movies lately.

But while this film is indeed thrilling and exciting, it also has the capacity for some quiet, tender, humanizing moments. For instance, the first half or so of the first act is filled with Steve just going around doing things. He meets Sam while outrunning him multiple times while running... during the same run. He goes incognito to the Smithsonian exhibit dedicated to him and his World War Two buddies. He visits a now very elderly Peggy Carter, who encourages him when he says he isn't sure what the right thing to do is anymore. There's also the many great scenes between Steve and Natasha, Steve and Sam, Steve and Fury, Steve and Agent 13, and even Steve and Alexander Pierce which serve to illustrate the finely crafted characters that Marvel has managed to produce.

Miscellaneous things I liked about this movie include its various continuity nods, such as references to previous MCU films and set ups for future MCU films. For instance, we've got Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo), known in the comics as the mercenary called Crossbones, the aforementioned Batroc, based off of Batroc the Leaper, as well as namedropping a certain neurosurgeon. I also liked the film's sense of humor, which, while by no means in the same shape of humor found in the Iron Man and Thor films, was, indeed, funny. Miscellaneous things I did not like include what they did with Jasper Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez). I don't know if it was an Life Model Decoy, or brainwashing, but he deserved better than that. Maybe he'll come up later in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I don't know, but I just hope that he's not out completely.

All in all though, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, is a solid film. Sam Wilson/Falcon, the Winter Soldier, and Agent 13 were all a bit underused (Batroc is gets one action sequence), despite being heavily promoted, but I can deal with that because when they were used, they were used very well. The acting was top-notch, the script, cinematography and music were all great, and it really pulled of the political thriller thing. It's a great film, and I liked just about everything about it, minus the smattering of bad language. What's more, it made me want to check out the comics run by Ed Brubaker (co-author of Gotham Central), whose storyline introducing the Winter Soldier in the comics was used as an inspiration for this film. Incidentally, this film was also the perfect Geek Pride Day/Memorial Day weekend movie!

RATING: 8.5/10

Image courtesy of comingsoon.net

Flag Day & Upcoming Reviews

Today is Flag Day, and the only reason I know this is because I was lucky enough to catch my friend Josh's Facebook post announcing the occasion (Thanks Josh!). Flag Day is meant to be held in celebration of the United States' adoption of the Star Spangled Banner as its flag. Flag Day is not a federal holiday, and is celebrated only intermittently around the United States. The oldest continuing Flag Day celebration is held in my own state of Washington, in the town of Fairfield. The nation's largest Flag Day parade is held annually in Troy, New York, where as many as 50,000 spectators turn out every year. Flag Day, June 14th, is also the day of the founding of the U.S. Army, as my friend Josh was also kind enough to point out in his Facebook post. As you might guess, this is in all likelihood one of Captain America's favorite holidays, aside from the Fourth of July itself.

For Flag Day, I did my lawn mowing job, which has been rescheduled because my dad wants me to be able to work at the shop more conveniently. I'm cool with that. I also will be going to Master's Club after missing it last week due to me not getting the email telling of its rescheduling to 6:00 to 7:00. We'll be learning MMA this month, and I'm kind of excited about that. I'm sure that it will be awesome. Also, I'm doing the library's summer reading challenge, and I finished the third of twelve hours of reading that I have to do. I spent an hour today reading The Answers Book by various authors. It's a pretty sweet apologetics book, with a load of cool information.

Upcoming reviews include The Invisible Heart, Iron Man 3, and The Third Man. I know I promised a couple graphic novel reviews, namely Batman: The Black Mirror, but due to me juggling reviews so much, and wanting to get caught up on New 52!Batman, I kind of had to twist my priorities around. I hope to review these graphic novels soon: Batman: The Black Mirror, Batman: City of Owls, and Teen Titans/Outsiders: The Death and Return of Donna Troy.

Image courtesy of tammybruce.com

(Belated) Memorial Day

Augh!

Of all the holidays that I had to give a belated notice of, why did it have to be Memorial Day? This holiday is quite easily one of the most important holidays to be celebrated in the United States! It's up there with Easter, Christmas, and the Fourth of July! Oh well. I'll just have to start late. Now, from the top...

 Memorial Day is a day of celebrating the lives and service of all American soldiers who have died in the line of duty. From the Revolutionary War to Operation Enduring Freedom, we honor every one of them. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to go to the memorial down in Renton, which I would have liked to do so I could pay my respects. Memorial was originally known as Decoration Day, and was established after the Civil War. One claim says that the first, albeit impromptu, Memorial Day celebration took place when the first soldier's grave to be decorated was decorated in Warrenton, Virginia, on June 3rd, 1861. Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day, which celebrates all veterans from the armed forces, living or dead. The American flag is supposed to be lowered to half-staff until noon on Memorial Day, and then raised to the top for the rest of the day. More info and statistic on Memorial Day can be found by looking at this handy-dandy chart.

In my humble opinion, there needs to be a general "Heroes' Day", like they have in the DC Universe, as well as other countries in the real world, including the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Uganda, and other places. In addition to celebrating patriotic heroes like Captain America, my proposed Heroes' Day would celebrate fallen everyday heroes, fictional heroes, and real life superheroes. These everyday heroes include soldiers, police, firefighters, and other emergency personnel, such as paramedics. It would also be a day of celebrating real life superheroes, such as Phoenix Jones and the Rain City Superhero Movement, the Initiative Collective, Master Legend's Team Justice, and the hundreds of other real life superheroes out there. But that's just my idea. Maybe I should write to my congressman...

For Memorial Day, the first thing I did after I got up early in the morning was to take a quick trip down to the Museum of Flight with my dear old dad. We went up to look at the B-17 on display there, along with some other old airplanes. It was pretty cool, though I wish I could have seen the inside of one of those things. I took some pictures with my Droid cell phone and posted them on Facebook.

On our way home, we stopped by the store to purchase some essential supplies for any Memorial Day barbeque: hamburger buns, hotdog bus, hotdogs, and mayonnaise for the potato salad. We made all of this food, and our guests brought some to boot! Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty brought clams, tamales, and ravioli. Grandma Lou didn't bring anything, but Grandma and Grandpa Sweeney brought angel food cake for desert. I didn't have any desert though, as I was full. I spent a lot of time talking with Uncle Bill, who is editing my book. He seems to like it a lot. After the party, when all the guests had gone home, my sister Rebekah and I got dad to take us to the pool, where I began swimming at 5:10. I swam twenty lengths of the pool in about 25 minutes, getting a free consultation on my swimming technique from one of the lifeguards, Robin. I know her from her days on the Bible Quiz Team, and she's a kind soul. Anyhow, after I got home I took a shower and chilled, after which, later in the evening, Dad and I finished watching 12 O'clock High, a movie based on a book or true story set during World War II. It was one of the best movies I've ever seen, and I intend to review it on this blog. Also, Grandpa Sweeney came over later in the evening to help fix up the lid of our toy box. I also lent Uncle Bill my battered copy of the first book in the Redwall series, which is itself titled Redwall. So, I guess it was a great day today. Also, no taekwondo today, or all weekend for that matter, as it was Memorial Day weekend, and the school was not holding classes during this time.

Also: I haven't yet seen any questions for Ask Levi! I plan to start writing that feature on Fridays, but I can't write it if I don't have any questions! Please, leave a question in the comments section below! 

Image courtesy of blog.adw.org

Levi Sweeney's Day Off

Today was the first day of the year in which I did not have any schoolwork to do, apart from my Bible Quiz Team stuff. I got up around eight o'clock A.M., where, after showering, I compiled the following list of goals for the day:

1.) Read today's One Year Bible entry.
2.) Read a page of the dictionary.
3.) Type at least 500 words on book.
4.) Type at least 3 pages for graphic novel.
5.) Edit review on Captain America: The First Avenger.
6.) Read minimum of 3 sections of Batman: Night of the Owls
7.) Brainstorm for The Misadventures of Nobody (and X-Ray) and Hero-Guys
8.) Review Quiz material; Ephesians 5 & 1st Thessalonians 5. Quote Ephesians 3 and answer 13 quiz questions.

As of this writing, I have accomplished every one of these objectives fully or partially, and then some. The only two that are not completely done are objectives 6 and 7. Throughout the day, I interspaced these objectives with activities such as watching Halo walkthrough videos (Halo will be the subject of a future post), reading an online resource on gangs, reading the now defunct blog Diary of a Police Officer, listening to the How to Succeed in Evil podcast (a satirical work starring an "Evil Efficiency Consultant", which I will review), weightlifting with a 15 pound weight, and going to the pool and swimming. I swam twenty lengths of the pool in 10 to 15 minutes. I'm glad to have gotten some exercise. I'm also glad to have made further progress on both my book and my graphic novel. On my book, I am happy to report that I am only a couple of chapters away from completion, plus an epilogue or two. As for the graphic novel, I think that I'm about halfway through. I also intend to brainstorm and write down ideas for a new fan-fiction I plan on writing, The Misadventures of Nobody (and X-Ray). It will involve Nobody, an anthropomorphic running joke from my other fan-fictions, my internet persona, X-Ray, general Bionicle stuff, namely Ahkmou, and the Russian Mafiya. In short, it's gonna be pretty awesome. I also began writing down ideas for The Ultras, another graphic novel series I have in mind to create, which will be in the same universe as Hero-Guys (the title of a graphic novel for The Ultras would be Hero-Guys: The Ultras: Superhuman, to give an example). I intend to use the "Seven Basic Plots" as a basis for telling their stories, just as I'm using "the Hero's Journey" as a basis for yet another graphic novel that I'm planning, Heroic.

Anyway, after all of that, I ate dinner and then went to Master's Club at my taekwondo school. Then I came home and wrote this blog post before getting to work on objectives 6 and 7, after which I might watch The Third Man...

Also, it's a bit late, but I wrote and posted a Batman fan-fiction in BZPower.com's Off Topic Culture section, Whatever Happened to the Agent of the Bat? I'd saddened to say that no one has reviewed it so far. So, read it and, if you're a BZPower.com member, review it! I'd love some feedback.

Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

I had the privilege of seeing this film in theaters with my family. Not in the week of its release, oh no, not even in the month of its release, or even when it was still in the big theaters at all. Rather, I saw it in October of 2011, at the cheap seats theater over in Maple Valley. But the location of my viewing of it did not diminish my appreciation of this fantastic film, and having recently viewed it again on DVD courtesy of Netflix, my lauding of it will not cease. Captain America is also my second-favorite Avenger, behind Thor, of course.

Captain America: The First Avenger is the origin story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) who, in 1942, during the height of the Second World War, desperately wants to enlist in the U.S. army. His numerous medical problems bar him from entering, and his best friend, Sergeant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan), isn't exactly supportive. "This isn't a back alley, Steve," Bucky tells him. "It's war!" And indeed it is war, as we see in the opening scene the handiwork of Johann "the Red Skull" Schmidt (Hugo Weaving, the guy who played Elrond in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. From big good to big bad, gee whiz, this guy has acting range. Or maybe his doesn't, as he always plays stern, serious guys from what I understand), head of HYDRA, Hitler's "deep science" division. He brazenly storms what I think is a church in Norway to obtain a powerful artifact called the Tesseract, which can power all of his crazy Nazi science stuff. This object is better known to comics fans as the Cosmic Cube. Meanwhile, Steve finally enlists in a special super soldier program thanks to Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), and he trains under Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones, the guy who played Two-Face in the best-left-forgotten Batman Forever) and Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Finally, he's pumped up with the Super Soldier Juice, after which he becomes super-buff. Unfortunately, HYDRA is onto Steve and the SSR, and it's not long before Steve become the centerpiece of a USO show. However, Steve eventually become the super-soldier that Erskine envisioned and goes on some wartime escapades around Europe, working the folks at the SSR, including a certain Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) to take down the Red Skull and Hydra. He has become Captain America (The First Avenger)!

Firstly, I just want to say that this movie has a great dynamic between the characters. And really, the characters themselves and their relationships with one another are what make this film work. Granted, there's the gorgeous set pieces, the stellar acting, the wondrous music, and the genuinely badbutt action sequences, but in the end, those things are nothing without the characters. We actually see how each character progresses and grows, except perhaps for the Red Skull, but more on that later. In general, there's also a lot of good emotion. The the humorous scenes feel funny, the sad scenes feel heartbreaking, and the intense scenes feel exhilarating. In the acting department, I'd like to give special commendation to Chris Evans, who shows a lot of acting range from playing cocky flyboy Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four to playing nice guy Steve Rogers here. I loved Hayley Atwell, Stanely Tucci, Dominic Cooper, Toby Jones, Sebastian Stan, and Tommy Lee Jones in their roles, plus the guys who played the Howling Commandos, particularly Kenneth Choi as Jim Morita ("I'm from Fresno, ace!") In other words, pretty much every actor in this movie. I also liked how they made a lot of references to comics continuity. Everything from the pretense of Dr. Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) and the Howling Commandos to the patently ridiculous "Heil HYDRA!" salute that the HYDRA goons do is in here, to Cap's original heater shield being the first one he uses, and more. And remember what I said about the set-pieces? I'm following up on that by saying that the World War II period piece setting makes for some great visuals. Roger Ebert noted that it was a nice departure from the standard, bland cityscapes that are par for the course in most other superhero films. Thankfully enough, Captain America: The First Avenger is far from par for the course.

Unfortunately, there are one or two things within the film that are par for the course, namely the Red Skull himself, and a little bit on the action sequences. The Red Skull, being a quasi-Nazi, is a really evil, badbutt villain. Unfortunately, that's all he is. We never see much depth to him in the scenes that he's in, where he mainly serves and an obstacle for Captain America to punch and throw his shield at. He doesn't change at all in the movie, and his motivations are par for the course for supervillains- take over the world. Loki in the Avengers wanted to take over the world because he had something to prove, so why couldn't the Marvel movie makers do something similar for Skully? I know that he shows a flash of compassion towards his sidekick Dr. Zola, and he shows that he's a ruthless killer, but that's all there is to it. The Joker in The Dark Knight was both cunning and ruthless, and they showed him that way in an interesting way, in that he was a violent psychopath with a dark and twisted sense of humor. The Red Skull on the other hand I think is presented sometimes as a more "classy" villain, more smooth and streamlined, but not as interesting as other comic book movie villains. This mainly stems from the fact that the creators didn't play up Skully's "classiness" factor, and don't show him doing a lot of terribly evil things, other than killing that one guy and planning to bomb the crud out of the whole entire world. The Joker actually did a lot of things, and he was darn good at being bad. Following from the Loki example, I'm not saying they should make the Red Skull into a leather-pants-wearing, fangirl-fleeing, angst-spewing guy, I'm just saying to give the guy some character (no pun intended). Red Skull's lackluster presence as a villain is also saddening, given that he should be one of the more developed characters, after Cap himself and ahead of Cap's love interest, Peggy Carter. Yes, he should be, as one of the three central characters (Hero, Villain, Hero's love interest) of a story, according to James V. Smith, Jr.'s You Can Write a Novel.

I also have something to say about the action sequences. While most of them were pretty badbutt, as I mentioned earlier, some were clumsily executed. I mean, you have one guy flying ten feet diagonally into the air after Cap decks him with his shield. I understand that this is a lot of force, being super strength behind a vibranium shield, but if you watch it, you'll see it as if the minions are being pulled back by wires or something. It just bugs me.

On the whole, despite these flaws (and some mild blood and gore; this is technically a war movie; plus some swearing), Captain America: The First Avenger is up there with Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Unbreakable, X-Men: First Class, and, of course, the Avengers, as one the best superhero movies out there. Buy it, rent it, get it on Netflix, rent a theater to show it at for you and your friends, I don't care. Just. Go. See it.

RATING: 9/10

Image courtesy of wikipedia.org

Fun fact: The crazy vehicles that Red Skull uses in the movie were actually based off of actual Nazi projects and conceptualized designs. Cool or scary?