Moon Knight is the New Black and White of Comics

Brian Michael Bendis wrote a volume of Moon Knight a few years back to coincide with his Secret Avengers team which included the hero. I recently read through this 12 issue run. I have to say that the reasons for me reading this was due to All New Marvel Now's(Yeah that is a mouth full) run coming out in the new year of 2014. Also I've always known of the character, but I've never felt the need to read anything with him in it until now. The reason other than his new series is that Warren Ellis is going to be the main storyteller on this upcoming book. Ellis has written stories including MK within the same volume of Secret Avengers, Issues #16-21 for the curious. I will be reading that before the new series comes out as well, just to feed my fix on the character. Also, Valkyrie is in the series, and she's one of my favorite female super-heroines in Marvel.
So why am I blogging about Moon Knight? Let's just say whilst reading the 12 issue series I was enthralled. I haven't read a series this fervently in quite some time. Which would be the reason why I'm writing a blog after taking quite a substantial hiatus. I genuinely enjoyed this series. Some might say it may have to do with how short it was. It was only a year long run by comic standards. I honestly don't think that's the only reason though. It was more to my liking, with the street based hero work Marvel has given in the present with Mark Waid's excellent Daredevil.
Growing up I mostly enjoyed reading Marvel's X-men. They were a strange bunch with super powers that dipped into the unfathomable. I still enjoyed Detective Comics for it's hard hitting stories and gritty, yet realistic approach to life as a man dressed in his pajamas fighting thugs. So let's add some elements of fantastical to a gritty individual. Who really in all seriousness, is just a guy trying to get a Xena like TV show of his past glory spread onto your local tube. Let us then have him face off against a guy that killed one of the founding members of the second bunch of mutants to stake claim to the name X-men. Thunderbird if you're wondering and Count Nefaria as the villain.
So we have this poor fellow Marc Spector dressing up as a super-hero in all white with a crescent on his chest. He falls in love with a temporary(full-time during Marvel's Civil War) Avenger, Echo. Who is a deaf super-heroine. MK faces both Hollywood and a guy who can level a street with his sheer audacity. Everyone says he should call the Avengers. He really should, he doesn't have any powers like Spider-man, Wolverine, or Captain America. All people who he obviously looks up to. He just emulates them.

Spector doesn't have powers, but he does have the power of being super crazy. He is suffering from Multiple Personality disorders on levels that would have him committed, if not for the fact he utilizes them in ways most people can't. Honestly the crazy super-hero thing has been explored in multiple ways, and truly I haven't read any of the old Moon Knight books to know that Bendis has changed anything. But, Bendis does make a character with a serious issue into something likable. Everyone likes the heroes listed above, they have powers and responsibilities and issues that make them likable for a reason. This may be the reason Bendis chose them specifically, but later on in the series you find an almost Star Wars representation of ghosts for Marc.
Brilliantly done in the writing department, only if you enjoy a story about a guy just trying to do the right thing with the right capabilities. The art is standard for Alex Maleev, who is a personal favorite of mine. His work is just so stark and harsh for these kinds of stories involving the Marvel street fighters. He's done work on Daredevil in the past and Spider-Woman. 
This like Taskmaster's Unthinkable, made me look at a character in a new light. It helped me to understand that people like Batman and Spider-man aren't the only heroes that deserve our attention when we read books about fantastic stories. Comics are much more than our social conscience saying Iron Man is the best, or Superman for that matter. It's about what really makes us enjoy good stories and good characters.

Suggested listening: Beach House - Myth
I listened to a lot of their music for while I read the issues, it somehow fit.

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.

Aquaman is cool you guys, I swear!

Damn right he's cool. He's king of Atlantis and has his own team of adventuring heroes! They're called the Others, and I'm quite a fan of them and this issue. We continue with Atlantean weapons being spread across the globe thanks to Scavenger and other people selling them to land-dwellers and ocean poachers. While Aquaman is only in the first few pages the rest of the book does well without him and is more of a "let's get to reacquaint ourselves with the Others" issue. I assume they will play a part in the upcoming story arc which is being called the Death of a King. Which could allude to Arthur or his brother Orm. Probably Orm since he's sitting on death-row after what he did to the eastern seaboard.

Anyway the real fun stems from these characters called the Others, and there possible new member. She's a young girl who is half in the world of the living and half in the waking world of ghosts. A shaman by her Native American ancestry. I really liked how quickly they integrated her into the team to help take down the baddie with the item that Aquaman wanted to retrieve(It's in Arizona which is dry as all get out). It felt natural the way she slid in and worked well with them, especially Prisoner of War who can control a few ghostly soldiers. Even the villain Skinwalker's motive and characterization felt right. All in all a good book I recommend it, and it's a great jumping on point.

he didn't come back

Also this passing week we saw the release of Superior Spider-man, and his love for midgets and the rise of Jareth the Goblin King(Green Goblin is calling himself the Goblin King now). Also, don't leave a midget on a counter-top it could be trouble for them to get down, stupid Spidey-Ock... Avengers was good, even had some moral lessons all kids should know, like how to ride a stegosaurus. It also taught us a little bit more about this particular Hyperion. I liked the reveal at the end, and Iron Man phoning it in, literally. Other then that Daredevil continues with where it left off the last time I talked about him. Ikari is one hell of a villain, and when you find out who he's working for it only gets better.

That's it for this week in reviews. And yes the Age of Ultron 5-8 is coming soon. Have a great Memorial Day!

X-Factor, what the Hell

HUR, NOT THAT X-FACTOR

So, I've recently caught up with X-Factor. The Hell on Earth War just ended this week. It's one of their story-arcs where the multiple lords of Hell in the Marvel Universe clash in an attempt to kill Rhaine Sinclaire's(Wolfsbane) son, Tier. He was the 7 billionth child born in the world, and essentially was the trophy for whoever wanted to rule Hell. Of course he's quite over-powered against the Hell Lords, and slays Pluto quite handedly early on. This sets the tone for what he can do. By the way, yeah he ages pretty fast, and is nearly a "teenager" when this story starts. I guess being half demon dog has some benefits?

Some background about X-Factor; It's a cadre of mutants not dissimilar from the X-men. The original X-Factor was actually the original X-men team of Cyclops, Marvel Girl(Jean Grey), Beast, Angel, and Ice Man. They were government sanctioned and then of course replaced by Cyclop's brother, Havok's team; Strong Guy, Polaris, Multiple Man, Wolfsbane, and Quicksilver...You know what screw it, Here is the Wikipedia entry. X-factor's history is hard. I don't want to really spoil anything for the issue either.

Spoilers...

Also, this week FF came out. I liked it very much so. My love for Matt Fraction's Marvel work currently does not waiver. Bentley 23 was a class act, and of course good old Scott Lang's face from this issue now takes the place of Clint Barton(Hawkeye) on my Blog. Why do I like this series? The art is fun, the stories are fun, and I've always had a sweet spot for the Fantastic Four. Albeit the Fantastic Four book is not really doing it for me. Fraction also writes that book, but it's just not up there like this book. I really suggest getting into his FF though. A new Dr. Doom story is about to start! Also, Blackbolt was in this issue, I love me some Inhumans.

God I hope that's Parker

Ontop of all of this, I think the new Nova finally has moved from a guilty pleasure, to a great read. I hope Jeph Loeb (who is still one of my favorite writers on Batman) continues with his good work on the series. Yeah, I'm singing a new tune, I loved Richard Rider, but Sam Alexander is slowly becoming a favorite. He still has the option of joining the Avengers in the future, as was hinted by Ed McGuinesses' Cover for issue 7.

Suggested listening. LOLOLOL SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!

Don't hate me...

Battle Royale Rip-offs and Neil Gaiman

Yeah so I read Avengers Arena. I like to think of it as one of my guilty pleasure books. That and the new Nova, god I miss Rich. Hey it wouldn't be my blog if I didn't mention Nova, right? This week's issue of Avengers Arena, also known as the comic that ripped off Battle Royale/Hunger Games, starts in semi-high gear and then spins down to first. After that it shoves down the accelerator like a pile of Scrooge McDuck's money. Sentinel Kid Juston is a character in this series, so is Chase from Runaways. Chase grabbed the power of Darkhawk from Chris Powell. Okay, all of this is going over your head, why should I bother? 

Basic point of why I like this book and I've continued to read it for nine issues is pretty basic. Why do old ladies like to watch soap operas? No, I'm not trying to be mean saying only older women watch soaps. I know a few people who watch them and they're around my age or younger. The point is simple, I like to watch people be conniving jerks, I also like to see people try to be nice and mediate situations with said jerks. It like watching Thomas the tank-engine drive(rail?) into a tornado. "I think I can, I think I can!" Doesn't usually work out, sorry Thomas. I really enjoyed the British show Skins, mostly for this fact as well. Yeah it's essentially a soap opera or one of those reality TV shows like survivor. Big thing about this book though is people die. Some very beloved characters by certain groups of Avengers Academy, or more recently, oh wait that's a spoiler. I'm trying to not do those anymore.

Bottom line, if you like just stupid mindless dribble where kids punch and yell at each other and get decapitated, but with super-powers. Read this book. Get out of your, "Oh, it's just a rip-off of 'X' thing", and  try something new. You might end up liking it. I'm not trying to tell you want to do... please don't stop reading.

I like the big belt

In other news Angela's re-design for the Age of Ultron issue written by Neil Gaiman is looking nice. Doctor Strange movie is a go. Daredevil and Ghost Rider are back in the hands of Marvel Studios, but nothing is currently planned(Poor DD). I'm getting really hyped for the Man of Steel movie. I haven't seen Iron Man 3, but from what I know of it I believe I'll enjoy it. The Walking Dead comic that came out this week was fantastic, and I'm hoping things start to speed-up. Uh, yeah that's pretty much all I wanted to talk about.

As always, Thanks for reading. Here's your Suggested Listening. I couldn't remember that Danzig song, you know the one, about Angels falling... Crap.

Free Comic Book Day

So this Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. It was good. I haven't gotten around to reading what I got, but I figured I'd post pictures of what I grabbed. Really happy about the New Avengers poster I got from Realms. All in all, like Ice Cube said; today was a good day.

Don't tell me to make my bed