Marvel Legacy, Marvel Zombies, Master of Kung Fu, Ready Player One, Jessica Jones, Invincible Iron Man, Champions

Ready Player One

I love the book.  It gets me in all the right geek places.  But the trailers made me skeptical about the movie, despite the direction of Steven Spielberg.  All of the pop culture references work in the book because my imagination could linger on the mental pictures they generated.  With the film, I was worried that the cameos would barely register, severely diluting their effect on my nostalgia centers.

That’s exactly what happened.  I caught flashes of Hello Kitty, Battletoads, Serenity, and Chun Li, but there was nothing cool about seeing them next to each other.  Perhaps the mention of Wade’s lightsaber was just as much of a throwaway line in the book as Art3mis’ Aliens pulse rifle in the movie, but my mind was able to process the cool factor in the novel its own pace.  In the movie, I saw it for two seconds before I had to move on to the Zemeckis Cube.

The plot of the movie failed in the same way.  There was no time for anything to breathe, everything happens way too quickly.  It makes no sense that after five (?) years of no progress, the heroes blast through the entire hunt in, what, a week max?  The book drew out the puzzle for a lot longer, gave all of the relationships more time to develop. Even The Shining scenes felt more like a pit stop than a major set piece.

I did love the club dancing scene between Parzival and Art3mis.  The freedom and joy of their movement in zero-g space was lovely, and I hadn’t expected that.  

Regret watching? No

Would watch again? Yes

Would buy on DVD? No

Rating: Nice

Jessica Jones 18

What a wonderful way for Bendis to end his run.  He explains it in his farewell letter at the end: “I wanted to give Jessica one perfect day.”  And he succeeds so beautifully. Just another case, just another paycheck. Just another day in the life of one of the most fucked up, normal, perfect creations in the comic book universe.  Bravo.

Invincible Iron Man 598

Meanwhile, Bendis continues to tread water on this title, padding it for all he’s worth on his way to issue 600.  

Champions 18

It’s a day of final issues as Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos sign off on this really-fun-but-not-as-fun-as-Impulse collaboration.  They put everything back in the toybox as they found it, all of the characters a little richer for the experience. I suspect I’ll look back on this series fondly when I get to re-reading it.  

Marvel Legacy 1

I thought that this would be a sweet look at the Avengers and the heroes they’ve inspired, the beginning of a mini-series that would show the generations working together against a common foe.  I don’t know why that was my impression. Perhaps I was fooled by the shiny lenticular cover and Joe Quesada art.

What I got instead was a commercial for Marvel’s upcoming titles, a couple of pages teasing each one.  I’m completely insulted that they sold this abomination. This calls for the creation of the all-new Hated rating!

Regret buying? Yes

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Hated (Cutting)

Marvel Zombies 1-5

Marvel Zombies: Dead Days

Marvel Zombies 2 1-5

I’m positive that Robert Kirkman had already been writing Walking Dead by this point...yep, he was three years into it.  He infused the perfect amount of absurd dark humor into this thing. The zombified heroes recognize just how ridiculous their situation is, and never stop commenting about it.  I mean, look at the things that happen - They eat Silver Surfer. Then they eat frikking Galactus. And gain the power cosmic. And eat the world. And Ego, the Living Planet. They literally eat a planet.  

Apparently there were 5 more volumes of this story, none written by Kirkman.  I’m good with what I’ve got.

Also love all the zombie cover homages.  Some inspired work by Arthur Suydam.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Master of Kung-Fu 1-4

A Secret Wars: Battleworlds spin-off.  So basically an Elseworlds story. Shang-Chi fights a bunch of martial arts masters, which is really all I was hoping for.  If only the artist were more accomplished. Dalibor Talajic does an okay job, and is actually good with the flashback sequences, but this could have been amazing with someone like David Marquez.

Very evocative.

Not shabby.

But wouldn't Marquez have killed it?

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice