Comic Musing: The SECRET WARS Retrospective Post (Updated)

Doom's signalling for the Cosmic RKO!

So!  Secret Wars, then.  Since I finally wrapped up my exhaustive preview blog, Marvel's big summer event lurched into life...and kept lurching, and still is lurching even as summer becomes a hazy memory.  What was once an 8-issue series (not the 12-issue one I somehow thought it was...sorry) has become 9-issues long, and will likely keep rolling through to December at this rate, even as most books reset under the 'All-New All-Different' banner and go back to a non-Battleworld reality.

That said, most of the SW tie-in books have either wrapped up or will do so over the course of October, and given how much time and money I've sunk into them, I feel obliged to share some final thoughts on those I've read.  This post should be considered a work-in-progress, and will be expanded as more series conclude. (Updated on 26/10/15)

Comic Musing: Craig's SECRET WARS Series-by-Series Thoughtlog (Updated)

This is what it's like when worlds COLLIIIIIIIIIDE

*Powerman 5000 continues*

By now you'll have heard the news that Marvel Comics are - 

...oh, you didn't hear it because you don't pay attention to comics because you, quite rightly, have better things to do with your time?  Fair enough.

Uh, so you may or may not have heard that from this coming May onwards, Marvel Comics are once again hosting a Secret Wars event series, taking the same name from a decades-old multi-title crossover that threw an abundance of heroes and villains from all walks of life onto an unfamiliar world, and left them to wreck each others' shit for the amusement of a cosmic jackass.  It was pretty good fun, Spider-Man got his black suit out of it, there was a whole mess of toys released, and if you're a reader of a certain age you probably remember it fondly.

Secret Wars 2015 has almost nothing to do with that, and given that it's unavoidable, it's high time I sorted out my thoughts on its ideas and parts.

Craig's Token Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 3 Thought Post

 Love the reactions in this shot.  Downey's smug bow, Evans' mildly

embarassed aw-shucks wave, and Boseman all 'OMG OMG IS THIS REAL??'.

So, unless you live under a rock, or simply don't care about this kind of thing, you've likely already heard what was revealed at Marvel Studio's exclusive-attendance press event last week.  The entirety of 'phase 3', the next solid block of films taking place within the universe defined by The Avengers has been charted, and so now we know every step on the path to cinema's current greatest heroes facing their ultimate - final? - battle.

Obviously, this is big news, and hundreds of other sites have been scraping over the details, running any number of rumours to try and gain hits.  Me, I'm late to the party, and I sure as hell don't have any inside sources to tantalize you with...but I slacked off and let this blog rot during October, and it's high time that changed.  At least this is something I'm enthusiastic about, so the writing should come easy.

Further Adventures of Minimate Nina, part четыре: A Day Unlike Any Other

Nighttime, at a news office on the outskirts of the city...

(Don't ask which city.  There is only one.  The city.)

Nina:  Porn, porn, angry editorial about some spider-guy, weather forecast, porn, sports...ugh.

And this chair is tiny and really cramping my butt.  Guess it was a long shot

to expect this rag to have anything on new organised crime outfits...

though maybe I can break into the CIA from here - 

SUDDENLY THE POWER CUTS!

Nina:  This isn't going to be the good kind of surprise, is it?

???:  Miss Williams!  On the authority of SHIELD, you are under arrest!  Come out of the 

building with your hands empty and there won't be any trouble!

Iron Man:  You don't really expect her to go for that, do ya?

Captain America:  No, not really.  That's why you're all here.

AVENGERS, ASSEMBLE!

Click through for more.

Film Reaction: THOR: THE DARK WORLD

"Darling, keep me safe from the floating people with no legs!"

And so onwards rolls the Marvel juggernaut (uh, not the Marvel character Juggernaut, although that dude does roll on quite a bit) as, after Iron Man 3 basically killed summer for every other movie this year, the coming of winter brings with it the return of the mighty Odinson, he of magic hammer, enviable hair and crazy popular evil sibling.  While there's only been one prior Thor movie, the use of Loki as the main villain in The Avengers made that film quite organically the 'step 2' of the brothers' story, and leaves The Dark World with a very different starting point.  Even so, it still has to tie things up neatly from its predecessor and succeed in being a superior film, so, how did it do?  Read on, mortals.

Comic Musing: AVENGERS: ENDLESS WARTIME

Gloomy cover, oft-gloomy book.

If there's one thing I cannot stand about comics, it's the term 'graphic novel'.

Oh, I get what it's meant to be used for, don't get me wrong: it's to illustrate the difference between the typical comic book series (with individual 20+ page installments delivered monthly, each serving as a chapter of a larger book) and a full story told in one single volume.  It's just that the term has been co-opted by snobbish types who can't bear to admit they once read "one of the funnybooks" and actually liked it.  "Oh yes, I have read that GRAPHIC NOVEL by mister Moore, it was rather enjoyable - what?  Comics?  Pfah, no, dear boy, I never read COMICS..."  Say that last sentence in your best Mark Kermode voice for maximum impact.

Anyway, that nitpick aside, graphic novels (grrrr) are something that Marvel has been kind of ignoring for the past few years.  DC, on the other hand, have had a pretty good grasp on what the format can do - namely attract a different audience, the kind of people who have a passing interest in the characters and worlds found in comics but lack the patience or obsessiveness to throw themselves into the deep end with an ongoing series.  Stuff like the Earth One Batman and Superman stories have been pretty successful examples of this, but with the debut effort of their new OGN line, Marvel are perhaps being more ambitious; instead of retelling the beginnings of one of their iconic heroes, writer Warren Ellis and artist Mike McKone choose to drop the reader into a very of-the-moment universe, with a team of already-established characters, and trust that you'll be able to keep up with the self-contained story.  Does the gamble work?  Read on to find out! (or to save you some time - yes, it does)

Wherefore Art Thou, Articulation?

(Pictures and post layout made over a year ago - somehow remembered about them this week and felt like putting this up anyway, even though it's a bit outdated now. - Craig)

Deadpool:  "Wade's house, bah-bum-bum, in the middle of Wade's street...dah-rah..."

Deadpool:  "Well, who do we got here now?  Hey folks, and welcome to what I hope'll be a regular guest-starring stint on this here blog!  Not that I really need any more guest-starring roles, I'm turning up in so much crap nowadays I can barely catch time for a Golden Girls masturba - umm, marathon at the weekends."