The Incredible Hulk

I went to see The Incredible Hulk last night, just on a whim and not really with much anticipation. I liked the last one well enough, but it never really grabbed me, and the Hulk can be really hit-or-miss as far as storytelling engines go.

First off, the opening credits cut right to the chase, and as the music is still playing, you get that Bruce Banner is the Hulk, and he's on the run. This really lets the story get going right away, and even if you missed the Ang Lee/Eric Bana movie from 2003, you still get it. It was a smart move, and really kept the audience into the film.

The next thing that worked well was something that I was really worried about, and that was the casting of Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. I thought he'd either be too deep or play it too pathetic, but he really seemed to play Banner the way that I read the character as being in my favorite comics. Nervous, but responsible, and just driven enough to keep going. He was a great Banner, and he gets my kudos for it.

The Incredible Hulk also picks up where Iron Man left off, and really sets itself in the Marvel Universe. As the Army gets ready to chase Hulk around, weapons and schematics are labeled with "Stark Industries" and documents and references are made to SHEILD. The last scene of the movie, which I won't spoil, also made sure to make the fanboy in me salivate.



The movie also borrowed plots from the comic books, taking elements from both
Bruce Jones' run (Banner the fugitive) as well as from The Ultimates (Banner working on the Super-Soldier serum) and this really made the world more cohesive without pulling non-readers out of the story.

All in all, the movie was a success for me. The cast was as good as they had to be, the action was clear, Hulk smashed the Army and the Abomination, and the movie left the door open to introduce Doc Samson, The Leader, or tie into other things without weakening itself as a stand-alone. If you liked Iron Man, you'll like Hulk too.

Spider-Man: One More Day

Well, I've just read the first issue of the "One More Day" arc in Spider-Man comics, and 22 pages in, I'm quite enamored of it.

This book has been promoted for a few months now, and with my recent return to Spidey comics, I've been looking forward to it, if albeit a hint of wariness. After having read the first issue though, I am now more optimistic for the story. JMS on writing has been with Peter Parker for a long time now, and he has rolled with all the punches, and Marvel's editor in chief Joe Quesada picks up the pencils again for this book, and delivers with some very dynamic work.

I don't want to get into too many spoilers, but it's nice to see Spider-Man show that he's a top-tier hero, and doesn't get pushed around easily, even by Iron Man.

Good stuff thus far, hope it continues being so.

Captain America: What went wrong? (cont.)

Continuity is my favorite part of comics, but I'll be damned if it doesn't make it difficult to catch someone up on what's going on.

Picking up from where I left off last time, at the end of the "House of M" there was a short period of "normal" life in the Marvel Universe. Good guys fought bad guys, Woverine said 'bub', Cyclops was a dick. Everything was hunky dory.

The most important thing that happened to the story of Captain America was the creation of a new Avengers team. After a raid on the maximum security prison "The Raft" a group of heroes gathered by chance to fight the chaos and capture as many of the villains as they could. Once the dust settled, Cap, Iron Man, Spider-man, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, The Sentry, Ms. Marvel, Luke Cage and the mysterious Ronin were the new Avengers, and operated out of Stark Tower. They fought some bad guys for a while. Everything was great.

Then a couple of things happened.

• The Illuminati, a secret cabal of heroes, shipped the Hulk off into space as a final solution to his rampages.
• The New Warriors, on live television, went to bust a gang of villains. One of them, Nuke, used his power to escape, and in the process killed hundreds of people (including a nearby schoolyard-full of children and all of the New Warriors save Speedball).

The latter sets off a furor in the Marvel Universe, prompting the US government to introduce the Superhuman Registration Act, forcing any metahumans to register their powers, as well as to be trained and evaluated before they are able to use them, as a security measure to protect the civilian population from rogue heroes (like the New Warriors) getting in it too deep and resulting in another Connecticut disaster.

Heroes across the board are conflicted about this, and quickly polarize towards either supporting the act and the security it brings or acting against it, seeing it as an affront to freedom. They fall in with the two icons on either side of the debate, Iron Man (pro) and Captain America (con). Things rapidly degenerate when military force is used to capture unregistered heroes at midnight on the day of the act becoming law. Captain America, Falcon, Luke Cage and a handful of others are assaulted and retreat into hiding, trying to marshal up a resistance force.

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I'll take a break here to express some thoughts.

Captain America, the greatest hero the United States has ever had, is against the act. He seemed to be taking a passive resistance towards it, sitting quietly as the deadline passed. Who's brilliant idea was it to send a tactical military force to detain him at 12:01?

Also, Tony Stark really starts acting like a dick here. He turns on his friends, trying to manipulate them and bully them into siding with him. He personally turns friend on friend, and alienates his closest allies in doing so. He and Reed Richards begin to play chess with their friends and family, and it gets vicious and perverse very quickly. Tony's a smart guy, and I can't help but think he's got some plan down the road, but it mostly seems as if he is just amassing power for himself. The General consensus on the internet is "Iron Man is a tool", and with every passing month, he seems to be digging deeper and deeper.

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Flash forward through the "Civil War" event, there were a few milestones here to cover:

• At Iron Man's urging Peter Parker revealed to the world he was Spider-Man. This was an attempt to show the transparency of the Act.
  
• Peter was attacked on all sides by his enemies, forcing Aunt May and Mary-Jane to move into Stark Tower for their own protection.
• Reed Richards cloned Thor, and this clone (Clor!) killed Black Goliath in a showdown between Cap and Iron Man's forces.
• The FF broke up, mostly because Reed was acting without even talking things over with his wife.
• Namor, Black Bolt and Black Panther all strained their US relations in some way as a result of the registration act.
• Spider-Man joined Cap's side after seeing how far Tony was ready to go, specifically killing another hero in Black Lightning.
• The government formed an officially sanctioned super-team to track down renegades in the Thunderbolts. The team included registered metas Green Goblin, Bullseye and Venom amongst others.
  
• Iron Man and Reed Richards created a super-prison in the neutral zone to hold non-conformists.
• Cap and his team attacked the prison, freeing everyone within and an epic battle began.

There is a lot more that happened in the series, but that's up to you to read. Again, wikipedia has it all summarized in great detail.

The important thing to remember is that real questions were being asked about the Marvel Universe's civil freedoms and how much were they worth when compared to the promise of security.

The Civil War ends when, mid-battle, Captain America realises that the collateral damage being caused by this mid-Manhattan brawl is too great, with hundreds dead and millions in damages, and surrenders to Iron Man.

Yeah, he just gives up.

And goes to jail.

That's how Civil War ends.

Back in his own book, he is taken to court, and upon making his exit, Sharon Carter (under the influence/manipulation of the Red Skull) snipes Captain America, shooting him 4 times with a high-caliber rifle and killing him on the steps of the court house.

Just like that.

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An interesting addendum to this is that Marvel leaked news of this story to the media the day the book hit the stands, so many readers heard about it in the paper or on the radio before they could get to the comic shop with nary a spoiler warning in sight.

The issue also sold out very quickly due to the interest generated by the press. I myself was not able to get a copy, the stores in my area selling out before I had a chance to get to the shop.

A Comics Blog - Day One

Several years later, I'm back. It's been a hard time with out a place to rail and rant about comics, but after a few other opportunities died on the table, I figured I would have to take matters into my own hands and, *gasp* start a blog about them myself.

If you're looking for my old archive, you can find it here. Though it is a few years old, there's still some fun there.

To the matter at hand: comic books.

Well, what can I say? I love comics. Stories of action and adventure, very nice art, modern allegory and nostalgia all play into the medium. I haven't had cable TV in years, but I have to have my comics. I'm a fanboy, and there's nothing you can do to fix that.

I'll start of simple, I guess, and tell you what I'm reading these days. I'll get more structured later on, or less structured, or, well, I'll get more interesting, but I think my pull list is a good place to start.

52 - DC Comics
Mighty Avengers - Marvel
New Avengers - Marvel
Avengers: The Initiative - Marvel
Conan - Dark Horse
The Goon - Dark Horse
The Spirit - DC Comics
Savage Dragon - Image
Justice League of America - DC Comics
Star Wars: Legacy - Dark Horse
Usagi Yojimbo - Dark Horse
Astonishing X-Men - Marvel

As well, I always am on the lookout for a spicy looking trade paperback to add to my book case.

So you can see, I have what I would like to consider a wide variety of taste in genres for my comics. I started out an x-fan, but most of the new books fail to call to me. I'm not historically an Avengers fan, but Brian Bendis brought me on board a few years ago, just like Geoff Johns did for his stuff at DC. Also, in the spirit of clairity, I didn't get "Identity Crisis", but got "House of M". I also got "Infinite Crisis" and "52" over "Civil War". What does that say about me? I'll let you decide.

All right. I suppose I should say something here that has some content.

I declare 2007 the year of Iron Man. He is the most prominent comic book hero thus far, and I believe he will continue to be a major catalyst for a long time to come. Sure, everyone thinks he's a jerk and a bully, but I like the way he's being written. He's a guy who made a bad decision, but said so much about it, that he cannot back down from it without losing face. Like that time I grew really huge mutton-chop sideburns. I talked the talk, and then I had to wear them for weeks longer than I wanted to.

Iron Man will continue to be the focal point of the Marvel Universe for a good long while. Tony's stepped up his game and taken on the mantle of the elite hero, the first amongst Avengers, and leader of the most powerful people on the Earth. Watching him scramble and fight to stay there will be a lot of fun. New Avengers #29 had Danny Rand and his lawyer shut Iron Man down like nobody's business in one of the best scenes I read in weeks. I don't want to spoil it, but it was fun.

So I'm calling it now. The biggest story of 2007 will be the fall of Tony Stark.