Feudal Cactus here, just informing any readers out there that I will not be making many updates this weekend. As a matter of fact, this will probably be my only update until Monday or Tuesday. This may come as a surprise to several of you out there but I actually do have a life and like to get out every now and then.
Speaking of updates I also want to go over the future of this blog really quick. Don't worry, similar to the sodomy you received before entering that fraternity, this will only take about a minute of your time. Last week I feel as though I stretched myself a little thin. I was writing too many blogs and not spending enough time editing each individual one; the quality suffered for it. There are a few I was not satisfied with and so I elected that I would post blogs less frequently in the future by committing more time to each entry. A quality over quantity sort of thing, ya know?
About now you should all be huddled into a sobbing mass in the corner of your room, but fear not! This does not mean that the posts will stop entirely, just expect there to only be about 3-4 postings a week. I assure you this is a great idea, and you will be thankful for it when you get done with one of my posts and find yourself scratching your head in disbelief that you are in fact still alive and not being subjected to some kind of personal hell.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Crossover Events. Part 3: Reloaded
This morning I came to the realization that maybe I was a tad harsh on DC in yesterday’s post. To prove that I am an unbiased and fair critic, I will call a truce with DC for this once and shower praise upon it while throwing Marvel into the mud. I hope that makes you viewers out there happy, and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Now, if you haven’t read part one and two, do so now and then come back here for the finale.
About a month ago I finished the Blackest Night crossover event and I was rather impressed. After checking to make sure blood was not boiling from the Earth’s surface and the clouds were still made from water and not Satan’s piss, I turned back to the comic and let out a sigh of relief. Finally, something worth a damn, my whole day had changed in a matter of seconds. No longer was I a bitter, self-loathing, misanthrope, I now had the urge to hug my fellow man and pet kittens with my hands rather than a pizza cutter
To clarify, the reason I enjoyed Blackest Night so much was that it was everything a crossover event should be. For the most part, even though the story dealt with an enormous catastrophe that required the assistance of most the DCU, it still focused on the Green Lantern characters and revolved almost entirely around their history - for the most part. This was a huge relief, because it meant that anyone who had been reading Geoff Johns Green Lantern run was able to keep it together and understand exactly what was going on. The story was self-contained, it wrapped up neatly while simultaneously opening the path for a new adventure for these characters, and it didn’t demand too much outside reading. However, there was something wrong with the last page. The same thing that is wrong with any comic that ends before the beginning of a new crossover event, the checklist.
Suddenly, I was having a nightmare. I was back in school and taking a test. Surely I had time to prepare for this, right? Oh yeah, that mound of homework they assigned for me. Well sorry, but I was far too busy playing video games to give a flying Frenchman about all that research. Yes, this had to be a dream that would at least explain why I was naked.
*sigh* To explain, a checklist is a detailed listing of all comics the company suggests you read to understand the full story of the next crossover; or as I see it, a full list of where to spend your disposable income for the next few months. Oh lovely, remember getting that pamphlet the last time you went into a movie, remember that pamphlet having a crossword puzzle on it that helped to explain the middle act? The Evil Dead movies did not require you to read “expanded universe” material and they were excellent films. Did the Phantom Menace leave plot holes and mysteries unanswered that could only be explained in outside material? Oh wait – scratch that last one. In fact, that’s my point right there! Crossover events like any other story need to be self contained.
Let’s use our imaginations for a bit, children. Reed Richards uses the awesome power of science to coat the earth in a thin layer of chocolate pudding. Galactus having just returned from burning man smells this delicious experimentation and once again goes for a late night fourth meal of Earth accented with a side of moon. Sensing the danger that Galactus might pose, Reed Richard and the rest of the Fantastic 4 summon all of Marvel’s superheroes to fight. This is exciting! This could be really fun in an IQ 60 drooling on your bib sort of way. But before you go on, you really need to read The Vision #876578678….
Why? Why should the audience have to suffer through this? Is it really necessary to force your readers to tolerate 25 pages about a green android they know very little about just to find out why the character is in this crossover event and spreading radioactive chocolate jimmies on the Earth? No, its not. The checklist is just a way to ensure that people are buying as many issues from the publisher as possible.
Oh, but of course if you REALLY wanted to know everything that was going on, you could always buy the compendiums for $50-$100, or go to the Marvel website and do some research on the characters to familiarize yourself with their backgrounds, or just go to Wikipedia and waste the next 6 hours of your life probing away for the answer to why The Hulk’s pants manage to stay intact when he goes berserk. Keep it simple! If you are going to make a crossover event, have the audience focus on only a select group of characters and have the rest for window dressing. And while you’re at it, be sure it tells a complete story that can be completed in 6-10 issues.
Ugh, you know what? I give up. Just take it, take it all. You can have your stupid comic crossovers, I’ll just go on pretending like they don’t happen. I’ll go on pretending that mutants do not exist in the regular Marvel universe. I’ll pretend that Gotham city resides in some parallel world where flying space men can’t steal all of our designer red underoos. But how? You know what? I’ve got an idea for a crossover, how about a pillow case and a collection of hammers do battle with my head!
About a month ago I finished the Blackest Night crossover event and I was rather impressed. After checking to make sure blood was not boiling from the Earth’s surface and the clouds were still made from water and not Satan’s piss, I turned back to the comic and let out a sigh of relief. Finally, something worth a damn, my whole day had changed in a matter of seconds. No longer was I a bitter, self-loathing, misanthrope, I now had the urge to hug my fellow man and pet kittens with my hands rather than a pizza cutter
To clarify, the reason I enjoyed Blackest Night so much was that it was everything a crossover event should be. For the most part, even though the story dealt with an enormous catastrophe that required the assistance of most the DCU, it still focused on the Green Lantern characters and revolved almost entirely around their history - for the most part. This was a huge relief, because it meant that anyone who had been reading Geoff Johns Green Lantern run was able to keep it together and understand exactly what was going on. The story was self-contained, it wrapped up neatly while simultaneously opening the path for a new adventure for these characters, and it didn’t demand too much outside reading. However, there was something wrong with the last page. The same thing that is wrong with any comic that ends before the beginning of a new crossover event, the checklist.
Suddenly, I was having a nightmare. I was back in school and taking a test. Surely I had time to prepare for this, right? Oh yeah, that mound of homework they assigned for me. Well sorry, but I was far too busy playing video games to give a flying Frenchman about all that research. Yes, this had to be a dream that would at least explain why I was naked.
*sigh* To explain, a checklist is a detailed listing of all comics the company suggests you read to understand the full story of the next crossover; or as I see it, a full list of where to spend your disposable income for the next few months. Oh lovely, remember getting that pamphlet the last time you went into a movie, remember that pamphlet having a crossword puzzle on it that helped to explain the middle act? The Evil Dead movies did not require you to read “expanded universe” material and they were excellent films. Did the Phantom Menace leave plot holes and mysteries unanswered that could only be explained in outside material? Oh wait – scratch that last one. In fact, that’s my point right there! Crossover events like any other story need to be self contained.
Let’s use our imaginations for a bit, children. Reed Richards uses the awesome power of science to coat the earth in a thin layer of chocolate pudding. Galactus having just returned from burning man smells this delicious experimentation and once again goes for a late night fourth meal of Earth accented with a side of moon. Sensing the danger that Galactus might pose, Reed Richard and the rest of the Fantastic 4 summon all of Marvel’s superheroes to fight. This is exciting! This could be really fun in an IQ 60 drooling on your bib sort of way. But before you go on, you really need to read The Vision #876578678….
Why? Why should the audience have to suffer through this? Is it really necessary to force your readers to tolerate 25 pages about a green android they know very little about just to find out why the character is in this crossover event and spreading radioactive chocolate jimmies on the Earth? No, its not. The checklist is just a way to ensure that people are buying as many issues from the publisher as possible.
Oh, but of course if you REALLY wanted to know everything that was going on, you could always buy the compendiums for $50-$100, or go to the Marvel website and do some research on the characters to familiarize yourself with their backgrounds, or just go to Wikipedia and waste the next 6 hours of your life probing away for the answer to why The Hulk’s pants manage to stay intact when he goes berserk. Keep it simple! If you are going to make a crossover event, have the audience focus on only a select group of characters and have the rest for window dressing. And while you’re at it, be sure it tells a complete story that can be completed in 6-10 issues.
Ugh, you know what? I give up. Just take it, take it all. You can have your stupid comic crossovers, I’ll just go on pretending like they don’t happen. I’ll go on pretending that mutants do not exist in the regular Marvel universe. I’ll pretend that Gotham city resides in some parallel world where flying space men can’t steal all of our designer red underoos. But how? You know what? I’ve got an idea for a crossover, how about a pillow case and a collection of hammers do battle with my head!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Crossover Events. Part 2: The Quickening
Before reading today’s entry, please take the time to read part 1 of the crossover blog. Do it, or I’ll convince the elves that make your cookies to replace the chocolate pieces with other brown matter.
No use in beating around the bush any longer. Batman and Superman should not exist in the same universe. Yes, I said it. Here is my nerd card; you can shred it if you like. And before you ask, yes this also means I don’t care too much for regularly occurring crossovers such as JLA or Avengers, unless the characters present have powers with a bit of consistency amongst them.
Seriously, am I the only one that notices this? Much like the innocent boy who sees the emperor walking around preparing to parry the attack of a midget sword fighter, I feel like there is something quite obvious that people simply CHOOSE not to see. I won’t lie and say that it isn’t fun to see Captain America and Wolverine walking around together pummeling criminals into the pavement, but come on! This goes together about as well as anti-freeze and dog food, and is one of the biggest reasons crossover events just don’t work for me.
“Cactus, you ninny!” a two dimensional dice throwing 16 year old boy exclaims whilst brushing the shame from his button-up shirt “Everyone knows it’s acceptable to have Batman and Superman in the same universe. Hell, even though Superman is stronger, Batman is the only person besides Captain Marvel that can defeat the last son of Krypton and is the one person all the other heroes would turn to if Superman lost his grip on reality and decided the Earth would have more Feng Shui if it orbited closer to the sun.” Well, well, well, aren’t you the cock about town? How could I have never seen this before? You are so wise and omnipotent! Now in case you recently replaced your head with a pumpkin, allow me to inform you that I was not being sincere in that last sentence. So sit right down, grab a Mountain Dew, and moisten your ears, because your squash is about to get shagged.
People always point towards Batman’s intelligence as irrefutable proof that he could stand toe to toe with the man of steel. Hold up! How does that work? Ok, I’ll admit that thanks to a Human’s advanced intellect, we can build powerful weapons like rocket launchers to take down physically powerful beasts like, I don’t know, say a Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, Superman doesn’t just have the power of incredible strength; he also has the power of EVERYTHING! A rocket launcher or a nuclear bomb might serve you well to dispatch a dinosaur, but if that same dino had: laser vision, hurricane breath, flight capabilities, could move so fast that time would go backwards, or hypothetically punch reality to alter the course of history (or have one of his many “clones” do it), I don’t think that doctorate in Sleuthing or a black belt in Jeet Kune Do is gonna help much.
Let’s examine it this way. Assuming Batman did want to kill Superman he would probably come to battle equipped in a Kryptonite flying battle suit, matching AI controlled Kryptonite bat plane, and have access to a satellite in space that shot concentrated bursts of raw magic. If he was sneaky he might even get a good shot off against the man of tomorrow, but the moment Superman realized that Batsy wasn’t playing around he could (in theory) fly several miles away in a matter of seconds to a train yard and start tossing the locomotives in Batman’s general direction. Given the strength of Superman, the trains would be moving unusually fast, and if he threw enough of them in rapid succession, it might prove difficult for Batman to dodge them and would prove impossible for a jet plane to avoid hitting them all together. Furthermore, this is assuming Batman has said flying suit. Most likely old Bats would be on the ground and in some kind of city. If surrounded by large structures, there would be no escape from this scenario. No matter how intelligent someone is, you are not going to be able to escape when several trains are being hurled towards your general direction going faster than the speed of sound and taking out every building surrounding you. Unless of course your brain was made from billions of gallons of soggy bread and could then probably reduce the force of impact.
Also, what about the The Dark Knight movie? In Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie, we are treated to a gritty, noir, detective story that just happens to feature Batman as the main protagonist. This is a cool concept and really elevated Batman to a silver screen legend. The movie works because while it’s not focusing on any one particular Batman storyline from the comics, it does take the very essence of Batman, his uncanny detective work, and shows him at his finest. Would this movie, with all of its edge and cleverness, be made more enjoyable by adding a scene with a man flying past Batman and throwing cars everywhere? No! Batman is a wonderful character who works stupendously within the framework of his own stories. The same goes for Superman.
So what possible scenario could warrant having both of these men join forces to do battle? I suspect if aliens invaded, Superman would fly off to battle whatever forces assailed the Earth while Batman stayed behind to play Yu-Gi-Oh cards with Robin, and by Yu-Gi-Oh cards I mean Batman would sit Robin down and watch Broke Back Mountain until the two of them uncomfortably touch hands by accident leading to gay love sometime in the near future.
By now I fear that I’m starting to sound like a Marvel nob gobbler, but let me dispel that illusion with this uncanny epic level prestidigitation. What the hell is with the X-men, or any mutants for that matter? Why is it that the people of Marvel Universes 616 and indeed all Marvel universes love and praise characters like Captain America and the Fantastic 4, people who received their powers from freak accidents or experimentations, but absolutely hate Mutants? Yeah - that makes about as much sense as a Doctor Strange’s fashion sense.
I would write more, but I’ve had a long day and I am getting super bored, super tired, and if anyone saw that I was writing a blog of this length about the wackiness of comic book rational, everyone would think I was super retarded.
No use in beating around the bush any longer. Batman and Superman should not exist in the same universe. Yes, I said it. Here is my nerd card; you can shred it if you like. And before you ask, yes this also means I don’t care too much for regularly occurring crossovers such as JLA or Avengers, unless the characters present have powers with a bit of consistency amongst them.
Seriously, am I the only one that notices this? Much like the innocent boy who sees the emperor walking around preparing to parry the attack of a midget sword fighter, I feel like there is something quite obvious that people simply CHOOSE not to see. I won’t lie and say that it isn’t fun to see Captain America and Wolverine walking around together pummeling criminals into the pavement, but come on! This goes together about as well as anti-freeze and dog food, and is one of the biggest reasons crossover events just don’t work for me.
“Cactus, you ninny!” a two dimensional dice throwing 16 year old boy exclaims whilst brushing the shame from his button-up shirt “Everyone knows it’s acceptable to have Batman and Superman in the same universe. Hell, even though Superman is stronger, Batman is the only person besides Captain Marvel that can defeat the last son of Krypton and is the one person all the other heroes would turn to if Superman lost his grip on reality and decided the Earth would have more Feng Shui if it orbited closer to the sun.” Well, well, well, aren’t you the cock about town? How could I have never seen this before? You are so wise and omnipotent! Now in case you recently replaced your head with a pumpkin, allow me to inform you that I was not being sincere in that last sentence. So sit right down, grab a Mountain Dew, and moisten your ears, because your squash is about to get shagged.
People always point towards Batman’s intelligence as irrefutable proof that he could stand toe to toe with the man of steel. Hold up! How does that work? Ok, I’ll admit that thanks to a Human’s advanced intellect, we can build powerful weapons like rocket launchers to take down physically powerful beasts like, I don’t know, say a Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, Superman doesn’t just have the power of incredible strength; he also has the power of EVERYTHING! A rocket launcher or a nuclear bomb might serve you well to dispatch a dinosaur, but if that same dino had: laser vision, hurricane breath, flight capabilities, could move so fast that time would go backwards, or hypothetically punch reality to alter the course of history (or have one of his many “clones” do it), I don’t think that doctorate in Sleuthing or a black belt in Jeet Kune Do is gonna help much.
Let’s examine it this way. Assuming Batman did want to kill Superman he would probably come to battle equipped in a Kryptonite flying battle suit, matching AI controlled Kryptonite bat plane, and have access to a satellite in space that shot concentrated bursts of raw magic. If he was sneaky he might even get a good shot off against the man of tomorrow, but the moment Superman realized that Batsy wasn’t playing around he could (in theory) fly several miles away in a matter of seconds to a train yard and start tossing the locomotives in Batman’s general direction. Given the strength of Superman, the trains would be moving unusually fast, and if he threw enough of them in rapid succession, it might prove difficult for Batman to dodge them and would prove impossible for a jet plane to avoid hitting them all together. Furthermore, this is assuming Batman has said flying suit. Most likely old Bats would be on the ground and in some kind of city. If surrounded by large structures, there would be no escape from this scenario. No matter how intelligent someone is, you are not going to be able to escape when several trains are being hurled towards your general direction going faster than the speed of sound and taking out every building surrounding you. Unless of course your brain was made from billions of gallons of soggy bread and could then probably reduce the force of impact.
Also, what about the The Dark Knight movie? In Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie, we are treated to a gritty, noir, detective story that just happens to feature Batman as the main protagonist. This is a cool concept and really elevated Batman to a silver screen legend. The movie works because while it’s not focusing on any one particular Batman storyline from the comics, it does take the very essence of Batman, his uncanny detective work, and shows him at his finest. Would this movie, with all of its edge and cleverness, be made more enjoyable by adding a scene with a man flying past Batman and throwing cars everywhere? No! Batman is a wonderful character who works stupendously within the framework of his own stories. The same goes for Superman.
So what possible scenario could warrant having both of these men join forces to do battle? I suspect if aliens invaded, Superman would fly off to battle whatever forces assailed the Earth while Batman stayed behind to play Yu-Gi-Oh cards with Robin, and by Yu-Gi-Oh cards I mean Batman would sit Robin down and watch Broke Back Mountain until the two of them uncomfortably touch hands by accident leading to gay love sometime in the near future.
By now I fear that I’m starting to sound like a Marvel nob gobbler, but let me dispel that illusion with this uncanny epic level prestidigitation. What the hell is with the X-men, or any mutants for that matter? Why is it that the people of Marvel Universes 616 and indeed all Marvel universes love and praise characters like Captain America and the Fantastic 4, people who received their powers from freak accidents or experimentations, but absolutely hate Mutants? Yeah - that makes about as much sense as a Doctor Strange’s fashion sense.
I would write more, but I’ve had a long day and I am getting super bored, super tired, and if anyone saw that I was writing a blog of this length about the wackiness of comic book rational, everyone would think I was super retarded.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Crossover Events. Part 1
Put enough socially inept and awkward teenagers in a room together and sometime before the largest of the children begins picking off the weaker ones for sustenance once the Captain Crunch is all gone, you’ll probably hear a “Vs” debate.
Versus debates are not difficult to pick up on, they usually begin with, “Who would win in a fight, blank or *missing value*” or “Dude, you are so stupid. Everyone knows so-and-so would trounce all over Captain Warble Nuts”. Once you’ve heard something along these lines, it’s best to walk slowly away being sure not to make eye contact with anyone involved in the conversation unless you want to be mistaken for someone who gives two rips about this masturbatory nonsense and accidentally get roped in.
In my youth even I have engaged in these arguments but quickly dodged out as an adult once I realized how silly it all is. Don’t for a second let some burger flipping youth convince you that either logic or science can be applied to these things. Despite not having laser vision there are a handful of people in this world who will try to make the claim that Genghis Khan could actually take Abraham Lincoln in a fair fight. Pashaw, I say!
A long time ago the editors over at Marvel and DC discovered just how feverish these feuds are and calculated a plan to make money out of it; and not the “let’s do good deeds for the people and turn a profit as an unforeseen byproduct” sort of way, but the “holy shit, can you believe these people are that brick faced retarded” art of asshole business. While spurious company rivalries are pretty good at keeping faces glued to newspaper print, crossover events are even better. Nothing gets a comic geek’s nethers wetter than the thought of having Batman and Superman team up, except for maybe authentic Aquaman Speedo tighties.
This is a rather clever marketing technique and it seems to have worked well for the two major corporate juggernauts over the years. Even my most cerebral studies get kicked to the curb like some poor misfortunate MIT graduate going through an Urban street gang hazing, when I see the prospects of Namor and Hawkeye teaming up to battle shape-shifting alien Skrulls. On a personal level, these “professional grade fan fictions” will get me reading them just to see if I can’t decipher on what page and panel number the lobotomy began.
But as I said before (and if not, I’m sorry), crossover events to me are just stupid. Sure there are a few that are good (key word good, not GREAT), but most of them are a complete waste of time. You might as well just go out to the forest and burn down the trees rather than having to go through this whole dog and pony show just to slim them down, dress them up in cheap prostitute inks, and wrap them in Mylar bags to protect them from Cheetos powder. Although explaining my hatred on a more technical level might help illustrate what I find so bewildering.
The writer of Superman is usually a different person from the man at DC comics who is writing Batman; in fact most of the superhero books are being made by so many different teams of artists/writers/letterers/inkers/colorists/editors that its befuddling to even imagine how any one person can pin this all down and draw a narrative thread connecting them all. Usually there is some fancy pants talking head at the top of this chain of command referred to as “editor and chief” which is another fine way of saying “man who sucked his way to the top”. Those who don’t believe me need only look in the direction of Joe Quesada.
What complicates this whole matter even more is within the single Superman story line you have a character that has been written by dozens upon dozens of writers spanning several decades. The madness steps a few inches deeper into lunacy when you have to whip out the Texas-instruments calculator to add up all the tangent universes, multiply by what-ifs, and divide by “oops we’re sorry, have a lollipop” retcons to even write a bare bones Superman plot. Then all of a sudden some whore at the top office in your corporate building comes down wearing a suit of money and says, “Yeah this is great and all, but I want all of you writers to go ahead and cram all of your ideas into one clown car and drive it right up the ass of all the fanboys. And if they don’t believe us, add in some editorials at the end of each comic we publish a few months before the crossover begins and be sure to reference minute details from old comics to build the illusion that we had this planned all along.” Surprise, surprise, this gamble usually pays off.
Now the key word I just used in that last paragraph was retcon, because retcon is the magical word that makes everything all right. No matter how shit for brains upside down all of the storytelling can get, comic companies can always press the reset button and see if they can’t find Princess Peach’s tasty golden locks in another castle of experimentation. So long as they get their money the companies will do their best to weed out the bad, cement the good, and leave all the fans so confused that they may end up getting their wires crossed and go off cosplaying as the Green Goblin wearing the Iron Man suit painted up in Captain America colors – no, that would just be stupid.
Versus debates are not difficult to pick up on, they usually begin with, “Who would win in a fight, blank or *missing value*” or “Dude, you are so stupid. Everyone knows so-and-so would trounce all over Captain Warble Nuts”. Once you’ve heard something along these lines, it’s best to walk slowly away being sure not to make eye contact with anyone involved in the conversation unless you want to be mistaken for someone who gives two rips about this masturbatory nonsense and accidentally get roped in.
In my youth even I have engaged in these arguments but quickly dodged out as an adult once I realized how silly it all is. Don’t for a second let some burger flipping youth convince you that either logic or science can be applied to these things. Despite not having laser vision there are a handful of people in this world who will try to make the claim that Genghis Khan could actually take Abraham Lincoln in a fair fight. Pashaw, I say!
A long time ago the editors over at Marvel and DC discovered just how feverish these feuds are and calculated a plan to make money out of it; and not the “let’s do good deeds for the people and turn a profit as an unforeseen byproduct” sort of way, but the “holy shit, can you believe these people are that brick faced retarded” art of asshole business. While spurious company rivalries are pretty good at keeping faces glued to newspaper print, crossover events are even better. Nothing gets a comic geek’s nethers wetter than the thought of having Batman and Superman team up, except for maybe authentic Aquaman Speedo tighties.
This is a rather clever marketing technique and it seems to have worked well for the two major corporate juggernauts over the years. Even my most cerebral studies get kicked to the curb like some poor misfortunate MIT graduate going through an Urban street gang hazing, when I see the prospects of Namor and Hawkeye teaming up to battle shape-shifting alien Skrulls. On a personal level, these “professional grade fan fictions” will get me reading them just to see if I can’t decipher on what page and panel number the lobotomy began.
But as I said before (and if not, I’m sorry), crossover events to me are just stupid. Sure there are a few that are good (key word good, not GREAT), but most of them are a complete waste of time. You might as well just go out to the forest and burn down the trees rather than having to go through this whole dog and pony show just to slim them down, dress them up in cheap prostitute inks, and wrap them in Mylar bags to protect them from Cheetos powder. Although explaining my hatred on a more technical level might help illustrate what I find so bewildering.
The writer of Superman is usually a different person from the man at DC comics who is writing Batman; in fact most of the superhero books are being made by so many different teams of artists/writers/letterers/inkers/colorists/editors that its befuddling to even imagine how any one person can pin this all down and draw a narrative thread connecting them all. Usually there is some fancy pants talking head at the top of this chain of command referred to as “editor and chief” which is another fine way of saying “man who sucked his way to the top”. Those who don’t believe me need only look in the direction of Joe Quesada.
What complicates this whole matter even more is within the single Superman story line you have a character that has been written by dozens upon dozens of writers spanning several decades. The madness steps a few inches deeper into lunacy when you have to whip out the Texas-instruments calculator to add up all the tangent universes, multiply by what-ifs, and divide by “oops we’re sorry, have a lollipop” retcons to even write a bare bones Superman plot. Then all of a sudden some whore at the top office in your corporate building comes down wearing a suit of money and says, “Yeah this is great and all, but I want all of you writers to go ahead and cram all of your ideas into one clown car and drive it right up the ass of all the fanboys. And if they don’t believe us, add in some editorials at the end of each comic we publish a few months before the crossover begins and be sure to reference minute details from old comics to build the illusion that we had this planned all along.” Surprise, surprise, this gamble usually pays off.
Now the key word I just used in that last paragraph was retcon, because retcon is the magical word that makes everything all right. No matter how shit for brains upside down all of the storytelling can get, comic companies can always press the reset button and see if they can’t find Princess Peach’s tasty golden locks in another castle of experimentation. So long as they get their money the companies will do their best to weed out the bad, cement the good, and leave all the fans so confused that they may end up getting their wires crossed and go off cosplaying as the Green Goblin wearing the Iron Man suit painted up in Captain America colors – no, that would just be stupid.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Late Intro
The coconut crab that nests on top of my head keeping my eyelids pried open has recently started nibbling at my brain. Since I enjoy living a bit too much I removed the cheeky bastard and threw him into a pot for dinner, but now I am having a difficult time remaining conscious. Several variant methods to stay awake were employed, but none have the same effectiveness as a giant head crab, go figure.
Since I am too tired to write anything witty tonight I am going to keep this one brief. In fact, don’t expect the same Alfred Lord Tennyson length blogs like yesterday during the weekdays; in fact, don’t expect me to write anything of that length ever again. A much better approach (I think) would be to segment my long articles into smaller portions and serve them in tiny bite sized meals since I assume most of you are Americans and therefore fat. Besides, it takes too much effort to be creative. Unlike some people out there I work for a living, and no, I would not count gold farming in MMOs as work as it sits nestled snuggly in the pyramid of importance next to a dietitian telling a fat kid that the deep fried pork intestine diet is the only way they’ll avoid that amputation.
Now I couldn’t help but notice my first two posts had all the cordiality of a drunken frat boy who breaks the ice with women using farts followed by the inquiry of tit ogling. Not wanting to tarnish my brand name I thought it would be appropriate to spend this short writing period giving a proper introduction of myself. Afterwards we can get down and deep with the dirty stuff - if that sort of thing gets your goat - which, I hope it does.
I am Feudal Cactus, clearly not the name given to me by my parents much to my dismay, but an internet moniker I chose for myself for no particular reason, but if you want something with a bit more juice to it I’m sure I can conjure up something to your liking. Follow these instructions: grab a cheese grater, grate your neighbor’s cat into a fine powder, snort cat powder, wait for mystical walrus in purple tunic to appear at your doorstep, and buy his encyclopedias. I’m listed in there somewhere, probably in the E-G book although I may also have a listing in the C-D tome. Honestly, you should just buy them all as that walrus is a keen individual who’s trying to send his kid to college. So if you like children (but not in a creepy van driving candy distributing sort of way), then help the walrus out, otherwise give Chris Hanson a visit and jump off a bridge.
Let’s continue.
I enjoy writing, drawing, taking long walks across zombie infested plague lands, and insulting the very nerd culture that I have been spawned from thanks to a strange masochistic driving force that compels me to do so. So you can look forward to all sorts of cynical ramblings in the future which I hope will be posted on a daily basis, because let’s be honest with ourselves, there simply isn’t enough of this on the internet as it is.
Tomorrow I will be posting the first part of a blog about comic book cross-over events; that or a video clip of a man getting his scrotum bitten off by a dog. Either way it will be informative.
Since I am too tired to write anything witty tonight I am going to keep this one brief. In fact, don’t expect the same Alfred Lord Tennyson length blogs like yesterday during the weekdays; in fact, don’t expect me to write anything of that length ever again. A much better approach (I think) would be to segment my long articles into smaller portions and serve them in tiny bite sized meals since I assume most of you are Americans and therefore fat. Besides, it takes too much effort to be creative. Unlike some people out there I work for a living, and no, I would not count gold farming in MMOs as work as it sits nestled snuggly in the pyramid of importance next to a dietitian telling a fat kid that the deep fried pork intestine diet is the only way they’ll avoid that amputation.
Now I couldn’t help but notice my first two posts had all the cordiality of a drunken frat boy who breaks the ice with women using farts followed by the inquiry of tit ogling. Not wanting to tarnish my brand name I thought it would be appropriate to spend this short writing period giving a proper introduction of myself. Afterwards we can get down and deep with the dirty stuff - if that sort of thing gets your goat - which, I hope it does.
I am Feudal Cactus, clearly not the name given to me by my parents much to my dismay, but an internet moniker I chose for myself for no particular reason, but if you want something with a bit more juice to it I’m sure I can conjure up something to your liking. Follow these instructions: grab a cheese grater, grate your neighbor’s cat into a fine powder, snort cat powder, wait for mystical walrus in purple tunic to appear at your doorstep, and buy his encyclopedias. I’m listed in there somewhere, probably in the E-G book although I may also have a listing in the C-D tome. Honestly, you should just buy them all as that walrus is a keen individual who’s trying to send his kid to college. So if you like children (but not in a creepy van driving candy distributing sort of way), then help the walrus out, otherwise give Chris Hanson a visit and jump off a bridge.
Let’s continue.
I enjoy writing, drawing, taking long walks across zombie infested plague lands, and insulting the very nerd culture that I have been spawned from thanks to a strange masochistic driving force that compels me to do so. So you can look forward to all sorts of cynical ramblings in the future which I hope will be posted on a daily basis, because let’s be honest with ourselves, there simply isn’t enough of this on the internet as it is.
Tomorrow I will be posting the first part of a blog about comic book cross-over events; that or a video clip of a man getting his scrotum bitten off by a dog. Either way it will be informative.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thoughts on Iron Man 2
Every now and then I’ll find myself watching a YouTube clip on applying make-up in preparation for my next big debutante ball. While engaging, to be sure, I sometimes grow lethargic and lose complete track of time. During these cathartic moments my body will begin to decompose due to lack of use and emits some sort of strange fungal ether which enters my brain and causes me to start hallucinating. In the hallucinations I am a board member at some haughty Hollywood film studio overseeing which movies should be given the green flag and released upon the unsuspecting masses to rob them of their dignity while we board members smoke cigars and sacrifice baby animals to our demonic corporate gods.
In one such illusion I found myself at a desk with a mound of comic books in front of me; my job was to select one for a movie deal. While there were a few obvious choices such as Spider-man, Batman, Superman, et cetera, there were others I might consider depending on which writer was being presented to me. For instance, the ghetto fabulous D-list super hero Iron Fist from the Marvel universe, whom enjoys wearing popped collar V neck 1960/70 era costumes no doubt made simply to capitalize on the success of bruce-sploitation, would seem like a terrible choice unless of course you were showing me the Brubaker run of the series in which case I dare say I would be as intrigued as a young school boy stumbling across Japanese Lovecraftian porn. You see writing is semi important, a talented writer can take the least interesting character and elevate him to superstar status; I say semi because other stories just skate by based on – err – to be honest I don’t know. Take Iron Man for instance. He’s never been a very interesting character despite being one of the three chief members of the Avengers team and this is to be expected when you come to the understanding that half of his stories are about a billionaire tycoon battling a stereotypical Chinese villain named the Mandarin who battles his science with magic. Please excuse me if my writing begins to suffer in the next few lines of text, as I’m in the process of trying to retrieve my eyes from the top of my head where they just rolled off to.
So back in 2008 when it was announced there was going to be an Iron Man movie I was not at all thrilled. Color me tickled prick, but I just didn’t see what was so great about Bruce Wayne with an alcohol problem, an expensive suit, and a penchant for seducing women rather than young men into his “Bat Cave” to train them in the art of grappling. Still, it was being directed by Jon Favreau, whom I liked, and had Robert Downey Jr. playing lead who I always thought was a spectacular actor who could really go places if he could just figure out the difference between cocaine and sweet and low.
The movie came out and I was flabbergasted. It was stupendous and ushered in an entire summer season of fun and thrilling superhero movies for the eager nerd republic of America to shell out their hard earned taco bell money towards. The movie was so successful that a sequel was announced within days. Now I’ve been around this block for a while and know all the prostitutes on a first name basis, but any thought of a sequel immediately has me reaching for my security blanket and a poo flinging defense monkey. Sequels by their nature lack the creative spark often times needed to create a movie and are nothing more than a desperate cash grab jury-rigged at the last second by the studio in order to pay off the money they spent on that orbital laser designed to carve their names into the earth’s surface. So in case you currently have a an infestation of carnivorous worms in your brain and are unable to make out what I am getting at here, let me spell it out for you. I went into this movie very cautiously.
The movie begins like this. An evil Russian hipster, who clearly enjoys his dessert a little too much and sees dentist drills as a sort of cyanide, has just arrived home after Seattle’s hemp-fest to discover his father is dying and that Tony Stark is a prick, thus setting the stage for a revenge plot. Rar! Said Russian pretty boy, named Ivan, is being played by Mickey Rourke, a man so hardcore that he is willing to disfigure himself in an attempt to improve his demeanor. Hey Rourke, just buy a necklace that gives you a +6 enhancement bonus to charisma. Hmm, he must be playing in 4th edition rules.
Cut to America and we see that Mr. Stark is walking on water and curing the sick with his awesome Expos which come equipped with big booty bitches in Iron Man costumes and enough eager fans present to start a hurricane if they begin to oscillate in unison. So right off the bat it appears that the yearly expo for Stark enterprises is some sort of amalgam of E3 and a military defense summit that is open to the public where the people hang on to Tony Stark’s words in the same level of awe and excitement as the day when Steve jobs reveals the new iwank telephone that drains the venom from your pocket python every time you make a call. The audience gets to play the role of the slightly ugly groupie who follows Stark around but never gets to polish his marbles. This isn’t so bad though, because while the plot is stammering along at the pace of a gimp carrying a cripple across a valley of broken glass, there is a lot of fun to be had without getting any salty taste in your mouth.
Holding the audience by the hand and Tony Stark by the cock is Jon Favreau the director, shoe horning himself in as Happy Hogan (god bless you comic book name alliteration) for a good bit of comic relief and fulfilling the duty of the no nonsense “everyman”. To be honest I’ve never understood the need for some directors to cast themselves in their own movies. This sort of thing doesn’t really bother me unless you are M. Night Shamalan and the movie in question is Lady in the Water. However, I have to make an exception with Mr. Favreau. If I’m not mistaken, Favreau began as a comedic actor and so he is actually a welcome member to the cast. Strange, I never thought I would see eye to eye with a director on this matter; now if you’ll excuse me my brain has leapt out from my ear. Let me go retrieve it and I’ll try to continue this review.
Before I go any further with this critique I would like to briefly analyze the first Iron Man film. The biggest strength of the first Iron Man movie was getting to see Robert Downey Jr. play Tony Stark; in fact the scenes involving Stark were vastly more interesting than any of the sequences with him in the Iron Man suit. Even towards the end of the film when Jeffrey Lebowski finally suits up and plays a rousing game of hacky sack with our titular hero, I couldn’t help but feel uninterested. I wanted to return to the fun characterizations and witty dialogue. If you are going to have a climactic battle sequence, then give me more spectacles and less of a girly slap fight where the two adversaries spend half the time sticking tea cozies up their asses. All I’m saying is that if you are going to have a fight scene make sure it’s at least half interesting. Ah ha! Found you brain. Now that everything is back to working order, let’s pick up this review where I last left off.
The US government in this story is completely mischaracterized as this ominous, completely disconnected entity which fears not having any form of control over its citizens and is absolutely outraged that a man’s private property cannot be seized by them as they deem it “unsafe”. How absurd. Everyone knows that – ah fuck it, this joke is going nowhere.
During the meeting with the big bad government that you’ve all heard about on the TVs and internets, we are introduced to a Muppet playing the role of Garry Shandling, and doing a mighty fine job too I might add. Alongside Shandling is Justin Hammer, a weapons defense contractor or something played by Sam Rockwell. At this point in the review I would like to take the time to stop and comment on the awesomeness that is pouring out of each orifice on Sam Rockwell, and yes, I checked them all. His performance is so over the top that he might as well have stolen Mickey Rourke’s metal teeth and used them to start chewing through the scenery. His ass-hole demeanor is the perfect counter point for Mr. Downey’s arrogance and completely runs away with the show leaving behind a trail of bloodied gaffers with teeth marks in their throats.
As the intensity of the scene reaches a rolling boil, James Rhodes walks in to add the spaghetti noodles to the pot and slowly stir. Remember Rhodey, 6-8 minutes for that al dente taste. Here’s where the movie gets a bit strange though because it seems as though there is a missing scene which will no doubt make an appearance on the DVD. When Terrence Howard walks in its immediately noticeable that he was involved in some sort of fire since we last saw him. His skin is darker and all his hair is missing. Our thoughts and prayers go with you Mr. Howard – oh wait. Apparently I am mistaken and Rhodes will now be played by Don Cheadle. Trying to pull a fast one on me, eh Mr. Favreau? Well let me just say that – oh, well that was actually rather clever. I tip my hat to you good sir (inside joke for those who have seen the movie and are not empty headed twats)!
After all the introductions are complete, the government wants Tony to relinquish the Iron Man suit to which he replies with a figurative middle-finger. Hurray Iron Man! Jingoism is for teat sucking fascists anyway. At this point the movie becomes one big after party of fun. We get a lot of jokes, a lot of fun, and hey, Scarlett Johansson even showed up with some rave sticks for everyone to play around with, although it seems like the swelling from those bee stings to her lips and butt still hasn’t gone away. Our thoughts and prayers go with your Ms. Johansson.
So where was I? I keep getting distracted by all these pretty colors, it seems Tony Stark has returned to his old ways and is molesting his holographic computer projections again. Oh yeah, that’s right the big party. Without giving away too much of the story it seems as though Stark is leading a devil may care lifestyle due to some sort of ambiguous time restriction placed on his life thanks to the radioactive toxins and isotopes coursing throughout his body caused by that weird Tron disc lodged in his chest; Screen Writing 101 is in the English department just past the drinking fountain near the entrance. But who cares! Life is sweet, and with the help of a little plot convenience or contrivance, Tony decides to pilot a race car in France where he is nearly killed by that Mickey Rourke guy. Remember him? From the beginning? Look I know you are trying to have fun, but this is a movie and we have shit to do. They mean business here and if the plot doesn’t show up by now who knows what will happen?
Suspecting at this point that he might be roped into a soulless sequel shat out of the asshole of the malaria test sloth of Hollywood, Jon Favreau as the character Happy decides to dispose of metaphors and quite literally save Iron Man from being killed. Afterwards we have an awesome fight sequence that lasts all of 30 seconds where the fully armored Stark defeats a half naked man with whips. I knew I should have never bet against those kinds of odds.
So Rourke is carried away and the movie is just beginning so clearly there has to be more to this plot correct? “Why yes!” Cactus ejaculated with much glee and delight. Shortly after Rourke (I suppose I should start referring to him by his character’s name by now) IVAN, is incarcerated by French officials and the movie decides to delicately shove a croissant up the ass of each French person in existence by demonstrating how inept and ineffective they are at keeping one man in jail. Ivan now free thanks to the assistance of Justin Hammer is contractually obligated to do a Marvel team up with the weapon man and produce a series of robots that will put the Iron Man suit to shame.
53% blood toxicity later and the true boo-ger man that haunts Tony Starks nightmares rears its liquidy head within frame; alcoholism. Caught in the downward coriolis toilet spiral of doom it seems like there is no one left to save Iron Man. Luckily for the American people we have James Rhodes to save the day whom promptly beats the shit out of his inebriated friend and then jacks one of his suits and delivers it to the American Air force. That’s true love right there.
Now if you’re like me then by this point you are starting to notice something a little queer. The movie is slowly but surely changing direction and pace. No longer are you in the topsy-turvy fun ride that was Iron Man 2 the Experience – coming soon to Six Flags Adventures. Instead you find yourself in some sort of PSA. You claw at the walls and try to negotiate with those who have you captured, but there is no escape. You are about to be hit with exposition!
The following day we are “blessed” - and no those quotes are not just for decoration - with the presence of Samuel L. Jackson as nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now before you start arming yourselves with pencils to jam into your brains, I want to stop you for a second and remind you that using a hot drill might be quicker and less painful.
Now I can’t be sure if anyone else in the theatre noticed this, but when Nick Fury came on screen (ha, perverted joke there) a nebulous singularity began forming over the screen which sucked all the life and energy from the film. But why? What is it about this character that could be causing this effect? Well I sat down with some Brazilian models in lab coats and came to the conclusion that even with money women still won’t remain in the same room with me for more than 30 minute intervals.
Nick Fury’s part in this grand opera is to sit you down and start telling you what this story is about. Yes, Sam Jackson is essentially the narrator of this movie. Now I don’t mind Sam Jackson, he’s a good actor when you give him a role that suits his natural charisma. Mr. Jackson has an intensity to him that is rivaled by very few and he does well when you drop him into a persona that demands this kind of thing. However, just because the character in question is a man wearing an eye patch with a black leather coat, does not make him Jules Winnfield. Nick Fury is a calm level headed individual, and while I know why they used Jackson for this character (*see The Ultimates), when you have the character spouting out exposition you really need someone with a smooth voice that can carry this as gracefully as a canoe in a calm morning lake; Jackson has about the same level of flow as a menstruating polar bear on a unicycle rocket. But as bad as this segment of the film is, the one ray of sunshine is that you get to see Ms. Johansson in skin tight bondage leather, a fact picked up by the cameraman when you notice all the shots of her revolved around her ass, as if the camera crew is trying to locate the exact location of the bee sting wound and apply ointment.
Ok, so maybe I’m being too hard on Jackson, maybe there is something of substance here that I can sink my sweet tooth into. Where is Rockwell? I need to see if he’s still borrowing Rourke’s teeth. But alas, I am wrong, for I have every reason to hate this portion of the movie. Why you may ask in an innocent voice? Because the whole rationale of this middle segment is to uncomfortably shove an Avengers plot into the same slutty corset that Iron Man is wearing leaving the nasty muffin top love handles and patchy Avengers breasts bulging out around the edges. I can already hear the geekgasms now, but before you go soiling your dainty panties I want to carefully explain to you how stupid this is. This is an Iron Man movie, not an Avengers movie, and while Marvel is diligently working its damndest to bring us that Avengers movie, it doesn’t have to try to fill tidbits of it into other movies. At the conclusion to both Iron Man and the new Hulk film we had a sprinkling of Avengers conservatively applied to our ice cream sundae; that’s fine by me but now the Avengers stuff is dissecting a portion of another movie and performing some sort of in vitro fertilization. That’s rape in my book!
After shuffling around kicking cans and weeds for 30 minutes the film finally gets back on course and decides to start wrapping things up. Thankfully this is where it gets good. Probably after hearing all the complaints about the climax of the first film, Favreau decides to have a big howdy do with the effects department and gives Iron Man a proper ending with a fight sequence that goes on for just the appropriate length. I would go in to more depth about this, but I feel like I’ve spoiled enough of this movie as it is. Feel free to cut off the rotten parts with green mold and digest the rest at your own risk.
All in all Iron Man 2 was an excellent film. Although I really do have to stress the importance of how nut twistingly awful that middle segment is, the rest of the movie is pretty good, if not better than the original. All the things I liked about the original: characters, dialogue, the fun and thrill of experiencing the life of Tony Stark, Jon Favreau’s man package, are all done better in the sequel. Also, the only thing I hated about the first film, which was the climax, was also greatly improved upon. In many ways this is a film that surpasses the original in almost every conceivable way until you get to the actual nuisance of that whole story telling business. If the screen writers had simply found a way to better explain things rather than stitching the exposition into the narrative and Frankensteining the whole thing at the last minute and maybe surgically removing all the SHIELD/Avengers nonsense, this would enter the rare hall of fame for “Movie sequels better than the original”. Oh well, that’s all I really have to say. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some bees that need training. Also, I have a sudden craving for Dr. Pepper. Weird.
In one such illusion I found myself at a desk with a mound of comic books in front of me; my job was to select one for a movie deal. While there were a few obvious choices such as Spider-man, Batman, Superman, et cetera, there were others I might consider depending on which writer was being presented to me. For instance, the ghetto fabulous D-list super hero Iron Fist from the Marvel universe, whom enjoys wearing popped collar V neck 1960/70 era costumes no doubt made simply to capitalize on the success of bruce-sploitation, would seem like a terrible choice unless of course you were showing me the Brubaker run of the series in which case I dare say I would be as intrigued as a young school boy stumbling across Japanese Lovecraftian porn. You see writing is semi important, a talented writer can take the least interesting character and elevate him to superstar status; I say semi because other stories just skate by based on – err – to be honest I don’t know. Take Iron Man for instance. He’s never been a very interesting character despite being one of the three chief members of the Avengers team and this is to be expected when you come to the understanding that half of his stories are about a billionaire tycoon battling a stereotypical Chinese villain named the Mandarin who battles his science with magic. Please excuse me if my writing begins to suffer in the next few lines of text, as I’m in the process of trying to retrieve my eyes from the top of my head where they just rolled off to.
So back in 2008 when it was announced there was going to be an Iron Man movie I was not at all thrilled. Color me tickled prick, but I just didn’t see what was so great about Bruce Wayne with an alcohol problem, an expensive suit, and a penchant for seducing women rather than young men into his “Bat Cave” to train them in the art of grappling. Still, it was being directed by Jon Favreau, whom I liked, and had Robert Downey Jr. playing lead who I always thought was a spectacular actor who could really go places if he could just figure out the difference between cocaine and sweet and low.
The movie came out and I was flabbergasted. It was stupendous and ushered in an entire summer season of fun and thrilling superhero movies for the eager nerd republic of America to shell out their hard earned taco bell money towards. The movie was so successful that a sequel was announced within days. Now I’ve been around this block for a while and know all the prostitutes on a first name basis, but any thought of a sequel immediately has me reaching for my security blanket and a poo flinging defense monkey. Sequels by their nature lack the creative spark often times needed to create a movie and are nothing more than a desperate cash grab jury-rigged at the last second by the studio in order to pay off the money they spent on that orbital laser designed to carve their names into the earth’s surface. So in case you currently have a an infestation of carnivorous worms in your brain and are unable to make out what I am getting at here, let me spell it out for you. I went into this movie very cautiously.
The movie begins like this. An evil Russian hipster, who clearly enjoys his dessert a little too much and sees dentist drills as a sort of cyanide, has just arrived home after Seattle’s hemp-fest to discover his father is dying and that Tony Stark is a prick, thus setting the stage for a revenge plot. Rar! Said Russian pretty boy, named Ivan, is being played by Mickey Rourke, a man so hardcore that he is willing to disfigure himself in an attempt to improve his demeanor. Hey Rourke, just buy a necklace that gives you a +6 enhancement bonus to charisma. Hmm, he must be playing in 4th edition rules.
Cut to America and we see that Mr. Stark is walking on water and curing the sick with his awesome Expos which come equipped with big booty bitches in Iron Man costumes and enough eager fans present to start a hurricane if they begin to oscillate in unison. So right off the bat it appears that the yearly expo for Stark enterprises is some sort of amalgam of E3 and a military defense summit that is open to the public where the people hang on to Tony Stark’s words in the same level of awe and excitement as the day when Steve jobs reveals the new iwank telephone that drains the venom from your pocket python every time you make a call. The audience gets to play the role of the slightly ugly groupie who follows Stark around but never gets to polish his marbles. This isn’t so bad though, because while the plot is stammering along at the pace of a gimp carrying a cripple across a valley of broken glass, there is a lot of fun to be had without getting any salty taste in your mouth.
Holding the audience by the hand and Tony Stark by the cock is Jon Favreau the director, shoe horning himself in as Happy Hogan (god bless you comic book name alliteration) for a good bit of comic relief and fulfilling the duty of the no nonsense “everyman”. To be honest I’ve never understood the need for some directors to cast themselves in their own movies. This sort of thing doesn’t really bother me unless you are M. Night Shamalan and the movie in question is Lady in the Water. However, I have to make an exception with Mr. Favreau. If I’m not mistaken, Favreau began as a comedic actor and so he is actually a welcome member to the cast. Strange, I never thought I would see eye to eye with a director on this matter; now if you’ll excuse me my brain has leapt out from my ear. Let me go retrieve it and I’ll try to continue this review.
Before I go any further with this critique I would like to briefly analyze the first Iron Man film. The biggest strength of the first Iron Man movie was getting to see Robert Downey Jr. play Tony Stark; in fact the scenes involving Stark were vastly more interesting than any of the sequences with him in the Iron Man suit. Even towards the end of the film when Jeffrey Lebowski finally suits up and plays a rousing game of hacky sack with our titular hero, I couldn’t help but feel uninterested. I wanted to return to the fun characterizations and witty dialogue. If you are going to have a climactic battle sequence, then give me more spectacles and less of a girly slap fight where the two adversaries spend half the time sticking tea cozies up their asses. All I’m saying is that if you are going to have a fight scene make sure it’s at least half interesting. Ah ha! Found you brain. Now that everything is back to working order, let’s pick up this review where I last left off.
The US government in this story is completely mischaracterized as this ominous, completely disconnected entity which fears not having any form of control over its citizens and is absolutely outraged that a man’s private property cannot be seized by them as they deem it “unsafe”. How absurd. Everyone knows that – ah fuck it, this joke is going nowhere.
During the meeting with the big bad government that you’ve all heard about on the TVs and internets, we are introduced to a Muppet playing the role of Garry Shandling, and doing a mighty fine job too I might add. Alongside Shandling is Justin Hammer, a weapons defense contractor or something played by Sam Rockwell. At this point in the review I would like to take the time to stop and comment on the awesomeness that is pouring out of each orifice on Sam Rockwell, and yes, I checked them all. His performance is so over the top that he might as well have stolen Mickey Rourke’s metal teeth and used them to start chewing through the scenery. His ass-hole demeanor is the perfect counter point for Mr. Downey’s arrogance and completely runs away with the show leaving behind a trail of bloodied gaffers with teeth marks in their throats.
As the intensity of the scene reaches a rolling boil, James Rhodes walks in to add the spaghetti noodles to the pot and slowly stir. Remember Rhodey, 6-8 minutes for that al dente taste. Here’s where the movie gets a bit strange though because it seems as though there is a missing scene which will no doubt make an appearance on the DVD. When Terrence Howard walks in its immediately noticeable that he was involved in some sort of fire since we last saw him. His skin is darker and all his hair is missing. Our thoughts and prayers go with you Mr. Howard – oh wait. Apparently I am mistaken and Rhodes will now be played by Don Cheadle. Trying to pull a fast one on me, eh Mr. Favreau? Well let me just say that – oh, well that was actually rather clever. I tip my hat to you good sir (inside joke for those who have seen the movie and are not empty headed twats)!
After all the introductions are complete, the government wants Tony to relinquish the Iron Man suit to which he replies with a figurative middle-finger. Hurray Iron Man! Jingoism is for teat sucking fascists anyway. At this point the movie becomes one big after party of fun. We get a lot of jokes, a lot of fun, and hey, Scarlett Johansson even showed up with some rave sticks for everyone to play around with, although it seems like the swelling from those bee stings to her lips and butt still hasn’t gone away. Our thoughts and prayers go with your Ms. Johansson.
So where was I? I keep getting distracted by all these pretty colors, it seems Tony Stark has returned to his old ways and is molesting his holographic computer projections again. Oh yeah, that’s right the big party. Without giving away too much of the story it seems as though Stark is leading a devil may care lifestyle due to some sort of ambiguous time restriction placed on his life thanks to the radioactive toxins and isotopes coursing throughout his body caused by that weird Tron disc lodged in his chest; Screen Writing 101 is in the English department just past the drinking fountain near the entrance. But who cares! Life is sweet, and with the help of a little plot convenience or contrivance, Tony decides to pilot a race car in France where he is nearly killed by that Mickey Rourke guy. Remember him? From the beginning? Look I know you are trying to have fun, but this is a movie and we have shit to do. They mean business here and if the plot doesn’t show up by now who knows what will happen?
Suspecting at this point that he might be roped into a soulless sequel shat out of the asshole of the malaria test sloth of Hollywood, Jon Favreau as the character Happy decides to dispose of metaphors and quite literally save Iron Man from being killed. Afterwards we have an awesome fight sequence that lasts all of 30 seconds where the fully armored Stark defeats a half naked man with whips. I knew I should have never bet against those kinds of odds.
So Rourke is carried away and the movie is just beginning so clearly there has to be more to this plot correct? “Why yes!” Cactus ejaculated with much glee and delight. Shortly after Rourke (I suppose I should start referring to him by his character’s name by now) IVAN, is incarcerated by French officials and the movie decides to delicately shove a croissant up the ass of each French person in existence by demonstrating how inept and ineffective they are at keeping one man in jail. Ivan now free thanks to the assistance of Justin Hammer is contractually obligated to do a Marvel team up with the weapon man and produce a series of robots that will put the Iron Man suit to shame.
53% blood toxicity later and the true boo-ger man that haunts Tony Starks nightmares rears its liquidy head within frame; alcoholism. Caught in the downward coriolis toilet spiral of doom it seems like there is no one left to save Iron Man. Luckily for the American people we have James Rhodes to save the day whom promptly beats the shit out of his inebriated friend and then jacks one of his suits and delivers it to the American Air force. That’s true love right there.
Now if you’re like me then by this point you are starting to notice something a little queer. The movie is slowly but surely changing direction and pace. No longer are you in the topsy-turvy fun ride that was Iron Man 2 the Experience – coming soon to Six Flags Adventures. Instead you find yourself in some sort of PSA. You claw at the walls and try to negotiate with those who have you captured, but there is no escape. You are about to be hit with exposition!
The following day we are “blessed” - and no those quotes are not just for decoration - with the presence of Samuel L. Jackson as nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now before you start arming yourselves with pencils to jam into your brains, I want to stop you for a second and remind you that using a hot drill might be quicker and less painful.
Now I can’t be sure if anyone else in the theatre noticed this, but when Nick Fury came on screen (ha, perverted joke there) a nebulous singularity began forming over the screen which sucked all the life and energy from the film. But why? What is it about this character that could be causing this effect? Well I sat down with some Brazilian models in lab coats and came to the conclusion that even with money women still won’t remain in the same room with me for more than 30 minute intervals.
Nick Fury’s part in this grand opera is to sit you down and start telling you what this story is about. Yes, Sam Jackson is essentially the narrator of this movie. Now I don’t mind Sam Jackson, he’s a good actor when you give him a role that suits his natural charisma. Mr. Jackson has an intensity to him that is rivaled by very few and he does well when you drop him into a persona that demands this kind of thing. However, just because the character in question is a man wearing an eye patch with a black leather coat, does not make him Jules Winnfield. Nick Fury is a calm level headed individual, and while I know why they used Jackson for this character (*see The Ultimates), when you have the character spouting out exposition you really need someone with a smooth voice that can carry this as gracefully as a canoe in a calm morning lake; Jackson has about the same level of flow as a menstruating polar bear on a unicycle rocket. But as bad as this segment of the film is, the one ray of sunshine is that you get to see Ms. Johansson in skin tight bondage leather, a fact picked up by the cameraman when you notice all the shots of her revolved around her ass, as if the camera crew is trying to locate the exact location of the bee sting wound and apply ointment.
Ok, so maybe I’m being too hard on Jackson, maybe there is something of substance here that I can sink my sweet tooth into. Where is Rockwell? I need to see if he’s still borrowing Rourke’s teeth. But alas, I am wrong, for I have every reason to hate this portion of the movie. Why you may ask in an innocent voice? Because the whole rationale of this middle segment is to uncomfortably shove an Avengers plot into the same slutty corset that Iron Man is wearing leaving the nasty muffin top love handles and patchy Avengers breasts bulging out around the edges. I can already hear the geekgasms now, but before you go soiling your dainty panties I want to carefully explain to you how stupid this is. This is an Iron Man movie, not an Avengers movie, and while Marvel is diligently working its damndest to bring us that Avengers movie, it doesn’t have to try to fill tidbits of it into other movies. At the conclusion to both Iron Man and the new Hulk film we had a sprinkling of Avengers conservatively applied to our ice cream sundae; that’s fine by me but now the Avengers stuff is dissecting a portion of another movie and performing some sort of in vitro fertilization. That’s rape in my book!
After shuffling around kicking cans and weeds for 30 minutes the film finally gets back on course and decides to start wrapping things up. Thankfully this is where it gets good. Probably after hearing all the complaints about the climax of the first film, Favreau decides to have a big howdy do with the effects department and gives Iron Man a proper ending with a fight sequence that goes on for just the appropriate length. I would go in to more depth about this, but I feel like I’ve spoiled enough of this movie as it is. Feel free to cut off the rotten parts with green mold and digest the rest at your own risk.
All in all Iron Man 2 was an excellent film. Although I really do have to stress the importance of how nut twistingly awful that middle segment is, the rest of the movie is pretty good, if not better than the original. All the things I liked about the original: characters, dialogue, the fun and thrill of experiencing the life of Tony Stark, Jon Favreau’s man package, are all done better in the sequel. Also, the only thing I hated about the first film, which was the climax, was also greatly improved upon. In many ways this is a film that surpasses the original in almost every conceivable way until you get to the actual nuisance of that whole story telling business. If the screen writers had simply found a way to better explain things rather than stitching the exposition into the narrative and Frankensteining the whole thing at the last minute and maybe surgically removing all the SHIELD/Avengers nonsense, this would enter the rare hall of fame for “Movie sequels better than the original”. Oh well, that’s all I really have to say. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some bees that need training. Also, I have a sudden craving for Dr. Pepper. Weird.
Monitors and Eyes
Looking around I can’t help but realize that we live in an unusual social epoch where playing video games, reading comics, and keeping one’s virginity intact are considered noteworthy character traits. Alright, maybe not the virginity thing, but being a nerd has never been better. Carrying around enough movie knowledge to fill several grain silos is like toting around an enormous golden calf above your head; something worthy of worship by all the other acne scarred mountain dew drinking fuck-heads who are willing to throw away whatever pagan beliefs they hold for the promise of more Pop-tarts and Pokemans.
Sadly, I can’t harp on these nerds too much for I myself am one of them. Having a rather robust comic, video game, and movie collection has netted me a seat of power as one of the “populars”. Ha! No more standing in the corner of social gatherings talking to my imaginary unicorn, Herbert, about my video game achievements. Now people can talk to me online via message boards and buy into all my lies! Life is grand.
The only thing I don’t really care for with this whole popularity thing is the upkeep. In order to maintain moxy it seems like we are all being measured against some constantly changing standards of excellence that none of us can see or predict. One minute you’re on top of the world with your Spider-man comics only to discover that some ass biting twit has discovered that Geoff johns Green Lantern is the new golden elixir that will cure aids and turn Bill O’Reilly’s words into a magical bucket of rainbows sweetly pouring into your ears. The constant flux of pressure being applied to my wallet would be nearly enough to lay me low if it weren’t for the no girl thing and therefore having the disposable income to continue my trek towards being the supreme nerd ruler of all time.
One of my first pressured upgrades I experienced occurred several years ago. While still in college I began to realize that I was getting rather good at multi-tasking. While playing WoW (and for the uneducated sots who know nothing of the joys of pwning newbs and grinding monotonous quests all day long, that’s World of Warcraft) I had this strange feeling like I could be doing more with my life; no, not studying, have you even been paying attention? I mean I could be playing a game and looking at LOL cats pictures simultaneously. I tried, but it was dreadful to say the least. Playing a game on half a tube monitor squinting my eyes to make out some sort of cheeseburger joke was wearing me thin. So it was decided by the council of elders to upgrade to a dual monitor setup.
$250 later I was the fat American social outcast owner of a flat panel monitor to compliment both my crummy tube monitor and my gargantuan nerd tallywacker (yes, we nerds have been known to possess such things). All seemed well, but like your first experience with petting a badger, the soft and cuddly sensation quickly turns to violent agony as you awaken to find yourself in a world of sharp savage scrotum torn pain. For whatever reason which will remain a COMPLETE mystery to me, my eyes felt rather strained *sarcasm*. After visiting an eye glass store and getting absolutely zero help from the hot secretary/librarian woman at the counter whom I suspect was too busy sorting out her Dewey decimals, I decided to simply shrug it off and take it like the man I was. The gamble paid off. The massive amounts of testosterone pumping through my veins was enough to send that pussy red eye business packing and all was well in my nerdy world.
Until recently….
Seeing as how it is 2010 I up and decided that it would be an embarrassment to my nerd status to have a monitor the size of an air conditioning unit. So the garish box left like so many hookers with a visit to the local dump to dispose of any evidence they had existed in my home. To take its place was an awe inspiring 24” widescreen, flat panel, HD, progressive scan, DVI input, reach around model. With this baby I was able to finally play my Xbox console in the HD format it was meant for. No longer would women point and laugh at how small my text was. Now I had godly text, text the size of Gregg Valentino’s arm, displayed on pixels as small as Gregg Valentino’s steroid shriveled wang. All seemed well until my eyes turned about as red as a cooked lobster walking in on his office workers pulling a train on his wife (ok, I’ll admit, that one was forced). Since this had happened before I didn’t bother concerning myself with it, but a month had passed and things were progressing as well as they would be for a 120 year old Hitler strapped to a chair in the middle of a holocaust survival group while he gives a speech about his new line of stove top ovens.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Cactus, how do you open a stubborn jar of sauerkraut?” Well, I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of a rant right now and I can’t help you. To which you reply, “Oh, well I have a second question. Why didn’t you just cut back on your computer/gaming usage?” Good question, a question that had run across my mind several times but I was desperately trying to see Tali Zorah naked at the time and I wasn’t going to give up without the ol’ college try (btw, FUCK YOU Bioware).
Two months passed and things were getting worse. I was beginning to feel concerned for my well being; after all, if this red eye business kept up I may never have been able to read another comic book or play another game ever again. Something had to be done. So like most of the worlds’ problem this particular dilemma was solved rather easily with some effort and ingenuity, meaning my mom forced me to see a doctor. The doctor prescribed some topical ointment to my eyes which was a thick gelatinous substance which blinded me for a good 30 minutes, and by Odin’s eye patch I was healed and my parent’s home was freed from the scourge of several low lying vases and lamps.
I walk away from this experience healed and knowing two things: always take things in moderation and remember to carry a walking stick around if you happen to be an Asian prostitute after a night of bukakke.
Sadly, I can’t harp on these nerds too much for I myself am one of them. Having a rather robust comic, video game, and movie collection has netted me a seat of power as one of the “populars”. Ha! No more standing in the corner of social gatherings talking to my imaginary unicorn, Herbert, about my video game achievements. Now people can talk to me online via message boards and buy into all my lies! Life is grand.
The only thing I don’t really care for with this whole popularity thing is the upkeep. In order to maintain moxy it seems like we are all being measured against some constantly changing standards of excellence that none of us can see or predict. One minute you’re on top of the world with your Spider-man comics only to discover that some ass biting twit has discovered that Geoff johns Green Lantern is the new golden elixir that will cure aids and turn Bill O’Reilly’s words into a magical bucket of rainbows sweetly pouring into your ears. The constant flux of pressure being applied to my wallet would be nearly enough to lay me low if it weren’t for the no girl thing and therefore having the disposable income to continue my trek towards being the supreme nerd ruler of all time.
One of my first pressured upgrades I experienced occurred several years ago. While still in college I began to realize that I was getting rather good at multi-tasking. While playing WoW (and for the uneducated sots who know nothing of the joys of pwning newbs and grinding monotonous quests all day long, that’s World of Warcraft) I had this strange feeling like I could be doing more with my life; no, not studying, have you even been paying attention? I mean I could be playing a game and looking at LOL cats pictures simultaneously. I tried, but it was dreadful to say the least. Playing a game on half a tube monitor squinting my eyes to make out some sort of cheeseburger joke was wearing me thin. So it was decided by the council of elders to upgrade to a dual monitor setup.
$250 later I was the fat American social outcast owner of a flat panel monitor to compliment both my crummy tube monitor and my gargantuan nerd tallywacker (yes, we nerds have been known to possess such things). All seemed well, but like your first experience with petting a badger, the soft and cuddly sensation quickly turns to violent agony as you awaken to find yourself in a world of sharp savage scrotum torn pain. For whatever reason which will remain a COMPLETE mystery to me, my eyes felt rather strained *sarcasm*. After visiting an eye glass store and getting absolutely zero help from the hot secretary/librarian woman at the counter whom I suspect was too busy sorting out her Dewey decimals, I decided to simply shrug it off and take it like the man I was. The gamble paid off. The massive amounts of testosterone pumping through my veins was enough to send that pussy red eye business packing and all was well in my nerdy world.
Until recently….
Seeing as how it is 2010 I up and decided that it would be an embarrassment to my nerd status to have a monitor the size of an air conditioning unit. So the garish box left like so many hookers with a visit to the local dump to dispose of any evidence they had existed in my home. To take its place was an awe inspiring 24” widescreen, flat panel, HD, progressive scan, DVI input, reach around model. With this baby I was able to finally play my Xbox console in the HD format it was meant for. No longer would women point and laugh at how small my text was. Now I had godly text, text the size of Gregg Valentino’s arm, displayed on pixels as small as Gregg Valentino’s steroid shriveled wang. All seemed well until my eyes turned about as red as a cooked lobster walking in on his office workers pulling a train on his wife (ok, I’ll admit, that one was forced). Since this had happened before I didn’t bother concerning myself with it, but a month had passed and things were progressing as well as they would be for a 120 year old Hitler strapped to a chair in the middle of a holocaust survival group while he gives a speech about his new line of stove top ovens.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Cactus, how do you open a stubborn jar of sauerkraut?” Well, I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of a rant right now and I can’t help you. To which you reply, “Oh, well I have a second question. Why didn’t you just cut back on your computer/gaming usage?” Good question, a question that had run across my mind several times but I was desperately trying to see Tali Zorah naked at the time and I wasn’t going to give up without the ol’ college try (btw, FUCK YOU Bioware).
Two months passed and things were getting worse. I was beginning to feel concerned for my well being; after all, if this red eye business kept up I may never have been able to read another comic book or play another game ever again. Something had to be done. So like most of the worlds’ problem this particular dilemma was solved rather easily with some effort and ingenuity, meaning my mom forced me to see a doctor. The doctor prescribed some topical ointment to my eyes which was a thick gelatinous substance which blinded me for a good 30 minutes, and by Odin’s eye patch I was healed and my parent’s home was freed from the scourge of several low lying vases and lamps.
I walk away from this experience healed and knowing two things: always take things in moderation and remember to carry a walking stick around if you happen to be an Asian prostitute after a night of bukakke.
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