Age of Ultron 5-9 Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love the Paradox

Defenders, Assemble!

OH BOY! I'm finally writing this. Which is funny since issue 10 is coming out next week. Ah well, I think it's long overdue, so let's get right out of the gate. By the by, kind of big spoilers for these issues. Now onto my ramblings!

Wolverine goes back in time against most peoples wishes to kill Hank Pym. Which will mean that Ultron never existed. Sue Storm stealths along for the ride, and Wolverine has to deal with her "Maybe you shouldn't do this" speeches. He kills Pym, and oh look Sue never tried to actually stop him. She just stood outside next to Nick Fury's flying car. Here is where the interesting element of reprecussions and paradoxissessesesesss... come in. See Hank Pym is kind of a big deal in the Marvel Universe, and I'm amazed that it took Bendis, who never seemed to show much love for the guy, to prove it.
By Pym's creation of Ultron we get the Vision, because the Vision was created by Ultron. AI begat AI. This means that Vision exists to marry the Scarlet Witch, who has kids and eventually breaks down when they're not real and kills almost all the mutants off. That's just one thing Hank Pym did. Another is that Thor ditched Earth and Asgard didn't back it, because Hank Pym is important to science, which Asgard revered at one point(The joy of the 70's folks, Space Science Magic God Vikings(That should be the name of a band(PARENTHESES!))). This means Morganna le Faye takes over in an alternate universe where Cyclops is called Cable, and Captain America is Nick Fury. The Avengers are called the Defenders and everything else is whack. During that alternate timeline we get a tie-in with Uncanny Avengers, which is by far my favorite issue of that book. Havok and Rogue lead the Morlocks and Kang brings in the children of Apocalypse-Archangel. 
Now I know this all sounds wonky, and you might be asking why I haven't talked about the original plan to go into the future with the big group led by Captain America and Nick Fury to stop Ultron? Because it fails and they all die.
Now if you're still with me, Wolverine realizes what he did was stupid, so he goes back and stops himself from killing Pym. Which works out... Pym decides "OKAY I'LL PUT A FAIL-SAFE INTO ULTRON". Sue Storm finally comes in and says that Pym probably should make himself forget any of this happened so that the world can run it's course like it had.

Is this confusing to you? Did anything I just wrote make a bit of sense to you? If it did, cool. If it didn't, yeah that's pretty much the entirety of this event. It's overly complicated, it has a lot of time hopping, and at one point I swear I read that Tony Stark from Morganna le Faye world mention that paradoxes are made up. Why make a story like this? Why have all this over-reaching to stop Ultron. Ultron is considered one of the Avengers greatest enemies, and he even screwed over the Kree home world Hala at one point. Why not just have a simple slug'em out battle royale like always.
One reason, Marvel is planning something big involving time. The timeline in the 616 Marvel universe is so screwed up with people going back to the past and forward to the future that it has created so many different universes. In the comic New Avengers the alternate earths and their universes are crashing into each other. X-men has an upcoming event called Battle of the Atom which is about a future group of X-men(gee we haven't seen enough of those). I think Marvel is about to do a Crisis on Infinite Earths level event, and time manipulation is the central catalyst.
Oh did I mention Wolverine kills his future self. And it's done off camera. I wonder how he did it? Decapitation probably.

Pym, after someone said he beat his wife

Next and last issue of this event will be co-written by Neil Gaiman. I wonder if she comes down and essentially tells them how bad they're screwed. Hopefully she says she will send a great champion to the land. Then a Miracle Man/Marvel Man monthly series starts next month Whoo! Alan Moore returns to big two(Marvel and DC(HAHA)) comics and writes a few issues double Whoo! God I wish this would happen.

Man of Steel: Unchained

So I just got back from seeing Man of Steel. It was good, showed what Supes could really do if he ever had too. I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible. I also read Superman: Unchained this week, and I'll be talking about that too.

Probably the best thing about Man of Steel was the fight scenes. The only characters that recieved decent development through the movie were Zod, and well... Superman. Lois was your base go-getter "I wear a flak jacket" reporter that instantly fell in love with the man in the red and blue. Perry White was lacking his normal trademark "Great Ceasar's ghost!", but Laurence Fishburne did a good job. Jimmy Olsen wasn't even in the film. The military guys were cool, if not a little refreshing on the way they handled trust with Supes. Jor-El was pretty good, but they could've explored a little with him and a possible Brainiac for future movies. It was nice though to see Jor-El kicking some ass.
This doesn't mean that the acting or casting choices were bad, just maybe the pacing of the movie. almost 3 hours of movie, and they still had a hard time squeezing everything in. Instead of just showing us Superboy, we get flashbacks that seemed to show up throughout the movie. Kevin Costner really did an amazing job as Pa Kent. I think he and the writing really did a superb job to show how he raised Clark to be a good person. Ma Kent did an alright job, and I hope to see her have more of a hand in future movies with being Clark's guiding light, but she didn't seem to carry the same torch as Clark's father.
The only real detractor for the film however came with a scene where Lois and Superman kissed. Yeah if you've ever heard of Superman, this isn't a spoiler. It just felt so forced and I didn't see any reason to necessitate it other than Lois was just overwhelmed at how awesome Supes was. I mean he did just save her from death(again), and I could see it just being the heat of the moment. It just took me out of the movie, but only briefly before we got one of the best fight scenes in a movie I've probably ever seen. Seriously, this movie just raised the bar for Super-powered fighting. Faora who was Zod's second in command proved to me that a Flash movie could be possible.
So why did this movie get bad reviews from some "top" critics? I'm not exactly sure, but I have a feeling they were expecting a Man For All Seasons Superman, and not a Red Son or All-Star Superman. I repeat this movie did not have Christopher Reeves in it, it's not your father's Superman. And that's okay. There are plenty of ways you can re-interpret a character. This Superman has the same amount of heart and cheerfulness that all the rest have. He just knows when to get his hands dirty, because sometimes you have to. He's okay with doing it because no one else should have to when he can do it for them. He carries your burdens, and that's what makes a Superman super. 
I would give it a solid 7/10, but I don't really like to give out grades because that makes my opinion of it solid. I don't want to convey my thoughts of this movie onto you. If you like Superman, then go see it. Make up your own mind.

Now for Superman UNCHAINED. While it probably is the best Superman book that DC is currently publishing since Grant Morrison's departure from Action Comics. It's not that good. It has potential and I'm curious as to where Scott Snyder is going to go with this idea that the bomb dropped on Nagasaki wasn't a bomb, but another super-being. An alternate Earth Superman from the 30's would be a neat idea, but I doubt it. Superman's inner-monologues were kind of annoying, but yet again this is a first issue, and if they continue with them they possibly could form to be something better. I'm holding out hope for this book, and with Superman/Batman coming out at the end of this month Superman might be readable again. Don't screw this up DC.


Suggested Listening: The Man of Steel OST, really great and powerful music that lended to the movie very well. I got tingles during some scenes because of it.