comic books

Chris Knight's avatar

I must be honest, that I’m not completely jazzed about Avengers: Doomsday.  Not like what happened the last time the Russo brothers made Marvel movies (Infinity War and Endgame).  Maybe I’m just tired of comic book movies?  Others seem to be feeling the same.  This and Dune Part Three are coming out on the same day and I know which I would get a ticket for.

What about you?  Does a new Marvel movie stoke you?

Well anyhoo, here is the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday.

I do confess that Robert Downey Jr. playing Doctor Doom piques my curiosity.  So we’ll see.

And yes, I am aware that there is a new trailer for Dune Part Three.  But I haven’t watched it.  The first two movies were such a delight (though there was some deviation from the novel) that I want to go into this ...

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The first issue of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns hit the stands on this date in 1986.

Four full decades later, it remains perhaps the most definitive tale of Batman’s persona as a human being.  Watching an older Bruce Wayne turn his back on his age and embracing his heroic persona once more is nothing short of magnificent… and also engenders much reflection on the part of the reader.

I first read The Dark Knight Returns in June of 1989: the “Summer of Batman” when the Caped Crusader was seemingly everywhere.  It was unlike any comic book I had yet experienced.  It totally changed how I perceived Batman and his world and it forever raised my expectations on what graphic novels should deliver.

Frank Miller, thank you for bringing us this story.  It will always be my favorite Batman story and no doubt it is for many other fans ...

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After my most recent post about Superman a lot of people, especially friends, said that I needed to see the 2025 Superman movie for myself, instead of being so quick to judge by what, well… shall we say more judgmental voices have spoken about it.  It was enough to compel me this evening to use a movie gift card that has been burning up my wallet for awhile now.  So I’ve returned from seeing David Corenswet in his first outing as the Man of Steel.

What did I think about it?
In general, I liked it and I’m probably going to like it even more tomorrow after it’s had some time to percolate in my gray matter.  One thing I will say that came as a bit of a surprise: it is not political at all.  Or at least I never picked up on any agenda infusing the story.  It’s
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I haven’t seen the new Superman movie that opens today.  Between one project and obligation after another there hasn’t been much time lately for anything like going to the theater.  I hope to catch it soon though.  For as long as I can remember I’ve been a Superman fan to some degree.  Superman is the superhero.  The prototype by which all others are measured.

In some ways, by which all of us in the real world can be measured, too.

Over the past few days I have heard some bits about Superman as he’s being portrayed in the new film.  Now, the character is almost ninety years old.  There has had to be some growth and acclimation during that time to keep up with the times.  But one thing in particular about this latest incarnation that I’ve been hearing about and… well, it kinda bugs me.  Because there is no ...

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A couple of things went online today that I’ve watch a few times.  I’ve got a good feeling about both of these.

First, it’s the first trailer for the second season of Amazon’s  Fallout series.  As a die-hard fan of the Fallout games I absolutely loved the first season.  They completely nailed the look and feel of the franchise.  It was an astounding surprise that throughly delighted me.  Season two debuts in December, which may be a busy month for streaming if the final volume of Stranger Things comes out then also (as many are speculating).

So here’s the trailer for Fallout season two:

And then there’s this: the new (and probably final) trailer for Superman.  This is a project that has gotten me increasingly intrigued with each new spot that’s been released.  I think David Corenswet is going to do much as the great Christopher Reeve did ...

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 …maybe I should give it time to still prove itself?

The Sandman from Netflix is attempting to pull off what most of us have deemed impossible: adapting the classic graphic novel written by Neil Gaiman, into a television/motion picture format.  This has been a project about a quarter century in development, going from one set of hands to another.  I’ve been a fan of the comic series for more than twenty years now, having bought the first volume about a week and a half after 9/11.  The Sandman was the literary escape I needed just then, and I’ve since read the entire series.  Heck, at one point I had every issue loaded onto my iPad.  

So I’m a real fan.  And I’ve been looking forward to seeing how it would fare as a Netflix series: arguably the perfect medium for an adaptation.

And now, having seen the first couple of ...

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Two matters have persisted in my mind during the past several months leading up to Spider-Man: Far From Home.  The first, obviously, is “How the heck does any Marvel movie follow up on the heels of Avengers: Endgame?”  Those three hours were a staggering symphony of cinema, made all the more magnificent in that they wrapped up eleven years and twenty-some movies of what had come before.  Did Disney and Sony and Marvel seriously believe that a Spider-Man movie could raise the bar on that?!


But for me, the bigger issue was this: “When the heck do we finally see Spider-Man’s little world explored and fleshed out on this canvas?”
Because Far From Home represents Tom Holland’s fifth outing as the web-slinger.  And still by the time of this latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe chronology we have yet to see Peter Parker’s unique and classic sphere
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You know that a filmmaker has returned to fine form when you’re compelled to a second viewing during a movie’s first run.  Maybe even soon going back for a third.

After a few disappointments (including 2006’s bewildering and nigh-incomprehensible Lady In The Water) my interest had grown wary – to put it mildly – in M. Night Shyamalan’s work.  The wunderkind who in 1999 brought us The Sixth Sense and then Unbreakable followed by Signs and The Village (a film I will never be ashamed to defend) had been hailed as “his generation’s Steven Spielberg.”

But then Shyamalan kinda wandered off the reservation.  Went weird.  Became the strange relative who packs up and goes into places that only his deepest id seems to understand.  Sometimes he comes back from the quest with renewed vision and perspective.  Sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes he fails to come back at all.

It wasn’t
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Tomorrow (or later tonight depending on how you gauge this sort of thing) is the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron in cinema houses across the country.  And just in time for that, Cameron Hobbs has delivered another work of art: this time it’s a frontal profile of Iron Man poised for action:

Worthy of hanging in the office of Tony Stark himself!

Find more of Cameron’s work at his official Facebook page as well as the original Superhero Art page....

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