Doctor Strange 2

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Things I liked:

• Scarlet Witch as the big bad.  As with Civil War, the best MCU antagonists are the ones where their backgrounds and motivations are fully formed.  At the root of it all, what parent wouldn’t do whatever it takes to be with their kids?  

• Sam Raimi produces some beautifully composed frames of film.  Gorgeous images.  (Wanda and Strange floating over Kamar-Taj, Flower Manhattan, the red mist in Wanda’s mind)

• The horror-lite aspects.  I’m a wuss when it comes to scary movies, but Raimi brings just the right amount with Wanda crawling out of the reflection, the zombie chase scene, the Illuminati fight, and the cloak of the damned.  

• I like the tragedy that Strange never ends up with Christine, in any universe.

• Steven’s a lot nicer to America than he was to Peter Parker.

• Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez.  Go Baby-Sitters Club alumni!

• Love the Illuminati cameos.  Hope they turn up again.  (The cartoon wheelchair and theme music!)

• Music dueling makes no sense, but it’s so fun to watch.

• “Know that they’ll be loved.”

Other comments:

• I hope Wanda’s not dead.  She deserves more.

• Why is everyone wearing gray in Flower Manhattan?

• For a place that leaves no survivors, Wong and Wanda get into Wundagore rather easily.

• The Illuminati ae ridiculously stupid when it comes to Wanda.

• Black Bolt’s costume sucks.  And Anson Mount is way better as Captain Pike.  

• So…dreamwalking in a dead body is too evil even for the book of evil spells?  

• Wanda never dreamed of Vision?

This holds up well even after a second viewing.  I really enjoyed this movie, MCU Phase 4 continues to do really well.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes (already did!)

Would buy on DVD: No (Just barely.  I might change my mind.)

Rating: Good

1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Captain America: Civil War

3. Captain America: Winter Soldier

4. Spider-Man: No Way Home

5. Ant Man/Wasp

6. Avengers: Infinity War

7. Shang-Chi

8. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

9. Black Panther

10. Captain America: First Avenger

11. Spider-Man: Homecoming

12. Avengers

13. Avengers: Age of Ultron

14. Spider-Man: Far From Home

15. Thor 3

16. Iron Man 2

17. Captain Marvel

18. Black Widow

19. Ant-Man

20. Iron Man 1

21. Iron Man 3

22. Doctor Strange

23. Guardians 1

24. Guardians 2

25. Eternals

26. Thor

27. Hulk

28. Thor 2

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Things I liked:

• Ewan McGregor was everything I wanted and expected as Obi-Wan.  He’s the main reason this was as successful as it was.

• Vivien Lyra Blair was surprisingly not annoying as kid Leia.  Indeed she even crossed over into “likable” territory with her sass and spirit.  It was easy to see both Natalie Portman and Carrie Fisher’s portrayals in her performance, a testament to her acting ability.

• The lightsaber fights.

• The encounter between Obi-Wan and Vader after his helmet’s destroyed.  So much history and emotion in those moments.  

Things I didn’t like (Off the top of my head.  This list would be a lot longer if I tried.):

• Obi-Wan’s travel time to Tatooine in the final episode.  

• Obi-Wan leaving Darth Vader alive.  

• Darth Vader not realizing Obi-Wan was still alive after the avalanche.  

• All that time infiltrating the Inquisitors and Reva’s ultimate plan was a half-assed attempt to backstab Vader?  

• Two moisture farmers fought Reva to a standstill?  

• Reva, who must have done many dark things as an Inquisitor, can’t bring herself to kill a child?  

• A Star Destroyer can’t take out a commercial vessel?  

• Ice Cube Jr is a horrible planner.

• Why cast Sung Kang if you’re not going to let him do anything cool?

• Too many continuity errors between this and A New Hope to track.  Example: Which dead mother was Leia referring to in Return of the Jedi?  She was too young to remember Padme, and Breha Organa was definitely not sad.  

This is a Youtube show - The only scene I’ll ever want to revisit (the final lightsaber duel) can be seen on Youtube.  I doubt if I’ll ever watch any other part of it again.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: No

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Fine

Watchmen

Watchmen 1-5

I still remember buying this at the comic shop on the MIT campus when I was visiting schools during my senior year in high school.  (They had a comic shop ON CAMPUS!  I somehow still didn’t end up going there.)  I read it on the plane ride home.  

What I would give to go back to that moment, of discovering something groundbreaking and life changing.  It’s an amazing feeling, something that I can still remember.  Would that I could bottle it up and hoard it for special moments.  (No way would I sell it.)

Rereading this is basically unnecessary from a review standpoint.  My opinion of Watchmen is not going to change from another turn through the pages.  I’m still going to do it, of course, and it’s already such a pleasure.  This is one of those “worth every bit of praise” comics, up there with Dark Knight Returns and Sandman.  (The fact that those are the other examples I came up with off the top of my head suggests those are my top three comics ever.  I’ll have to revisit that in more detail when I finish this whole project.) 

Scalped

Scalped 6-18

Nope, Jason Aaron didn’t do enough with this to hook me.  Everyone remains unlikable despite the numerous flashbacks that show why their lives suck so hard.  (All the backstories slow the main plot down to a crawl.  The pacing’s totally jacked up, it takes a full trade to get from Gina’s death to the next day.)  Everything remains bleak with zero prospects of improvement.  (What makes it worse is that I have no doubt that people actually live like this.)  RM Guera’s art is muddy and actively prevents me from deciphering what’s going on.  I have a mild interest in finding out what happens next, but I’m not going to spend any money on it.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Fables, Scalped

Fairest in All the Land

Cinderella and the Magic Mirror solve a murder mystery while wrapping up the Goldilocks story.  (Finally.  Never been a fan of this character in this title.)  Cinderella’s one of Bill Willingham’s standout characters, and I’m happy that she’s back in the Fables return.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Fables: Wolf Among Us 1-5

Based on the Telltale video game, which I remember liking while retaining none of the details.  I originally stopped buying this after five issues (out of sixteen), presumably because I got bored with it.  

This time around, I’m having a lot more fun with it.  I think it reads a lot better in one go; it’s way harder to keep all the details of a complex murder mystery straight when it’s interupted for thirty days every twenty pages. 

I’ve ordered the rest of the series, looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Batman vs Bigby 1-2

This was a questionable proposition from the beginning, and I only bought it because Willingham was the one doing the writing.  My original thoughts stand.  I quit this at the right time.  I’m still keeping it, though, because it’s still Fables, and I might want to finish reading this at some point in the future.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Didn’t suck

Scalped 1-5

I have three trades of this, but I have practically no recollection of it.  I originally picked it up because of positive reviews and Jason Aaron’s name on the cover.

Reading it this time around, it’s got so much in common with Aaron’s later Southern Bastards.  Prodigal son returns after years away to find his old stomping grounds run by a corrupt, older man who pretty much owns the town.  Death, intrigue, and machinations follow.  

This original iteration isn’t as good (so far) as the later one.  I don’t care about what happens to any of these characters, they’re pretty much all reprehensible people.  And Aaron doesn’t do nearly as good of a job of making them interesting enough to want to follow.  He’s got another twelve issues to change my mind and convince me to buy the rest.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Fables

Fables 139-140

A completely forgettable story about how one of the Fables leaves Fabletown and returns to his original world in the Homelands.  All of it could have been cut down to just the last panel:

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Fables 141-150

The final arc, where everything builds up to the climactic confrontation between Snow and Rose Red.  Which ends up being both completely anticlimactic and totally satisfying.  Along the way, a surprising number of people don’t survive, including Beast, Cinderella, and Ozma.  But Bigby and Snow get their happily ever after, and that’s what really matters.  This has been their story from the very beginning.

Bill Willingham also sprinkles in numerous “The Last Story of…” to wrap up the tales of all the characters he’s covered over this comic’s run.  Some of them are truly inspired:

And that's all there is to this story.  One page :)

How nice to see the mice were right all along.

Great to see Babe over here in Fables.

The ending's very reminiscent of...

...a childhood classic.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good  

So that’s it!  An amazingly strong run for Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and everyone else who contributed to this title.  I definitely went into this with some trepidation, thinking 150+ issues would eventually become a slog to get through.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Fables never lost momentum, and it feels like this went by a lot faster than the nineteen days I’ve spent on this.  Sure, I’ve got a few tie-ins to finish off, plus…

Fables 151-152

Coincidentally, Willingham and Buckingham have chosen now to come back to this IP after seven years.  I’m not going to do a re-read for these, they’re going right into the review gauntlet. 

Looks like Peter Pan’s the big bad this time around.  It’s nice to see Cinderella resurrected, and Jack in the Green’s definitely got one thing right:

Female archers are the thing right now.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Fairest

Fairest 21-26

Another Cinderella mission drawn by Shawn McManus, this time written by Marc Andreyko.  One of her wicked stepsisters shows up, as do the hundreds of wererats fathered by one of the mice-turned-coachmen from her fairy-tale night.  It’s all very meh.

Heh.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Didn’t suck

Fairest 27-32

I wish most of the arcs in Fairest didn’t feel the need to conform to the six-issue length.  Too many pages for not enough story.  This one splits its time between Reynard the fox seducing a Mundy and the animals on the Farm rioting over not getting their promised human glamours.  Don’t care about either plot.  The pissed off sunflower (can’t be bothered to learn his name) is zero fun to read about.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Boring

Fairest 33

Bill Willingham returns to tell us what Goldilocks has been up to.  Failing to start communist revolutions in Homeland worlds, it turns out.  She’s not nearly as interesting as Willingham thinks she is.  

One last Adam Hughes cover.

Hee.  Reminiscent of the Monty Python Constitutional Peasant.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Stupid

I’d probably cut a lot of the issues in this run if they didn’t provide so much backstory for the main title.  Informationally interesting, but only re-readable for that reason alone.

Fables, Fairest, New comics

New comics!

Dark Knights of Steel 7

The Titans show up.  Ma and Pa Kent kill some zombies.  Not bad, but not as good as DCeased.

Batman: Killing Time 4

The Help and Batman team up.  Riddler and Catwoman fight their way out of a pickle of a situation.  Fun enough on its own, but the usual “it’ll all make sense when it’s done” Tom King warnings apply.

Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland

An OGN that spends way too many pages recapping the not-that-interesting issues 28 and 29 WWII issues where Bigby fights Frankenstein’s Monster and Nazis.  The rest of it is devoted to a werewolf community that spun out of those events.  It’s as uninteresting as the original story.  It boils down to “Bigby kills all of the antagonists and cows the rest of the inhabitants into submission.”  Meh.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Fairest 1-20

I’m skipping over to Fairest because I don’t want to miss any potentially relevant backstory before the final arc or two of Fables.  (Not sure if I’m going to read the Peter and Max novel as well.)

1-6: The kiss of Ali Baba wakes up Briar Rose after her instrumental role in taking out Imperial City back during the Homelands War.  Hijinks with the Snow Queen ensue.  At the end of it all, Ali Baba and the Snow Queen are a thing and Briar Rose has a sweet new ride, courtesy of the witch who cursed her all those years ago.  Fun story by Bill Willingham, great art by Phil Jimenez.

The editor couldn't have picked a better artist than Adam Hughes to draw these covers.

Her disillusionment is totally valid.

Regret buying: No (Applies to everything today)

Would buy again: Yes (Applies to almost everything today)

Would read again: Yes (Applies to almost everything today)

Rating: Good

7: A shocking twist on the Beauty and Beast tale.  It turns out Beauty hasn't been Beauty ever since she met Beast.  Well, she has, but she’s actually a lamia that took the place of the original girl all those years ago, and eventually forgot her monsterly origins.  Only every so often, she reverts to type and goes on a killing spree.  A truly stunning reveal, and the emotional burden it places on Beast is heavy indeed.  (Beauty doesn’t know about any of this.)  I totally didn’t expect this in what appeared to be a simple, throwaway one-shot.  (The story itself, a 40’s detective murder mystery by Matthew Sturges, isn’t that interesting.)

Rating: Pretty good

8-13: We learn what happened after Rapunzel escaped her tower: She fell in with the Japanese Fables, where she participates in some truly Japanese horror type things.  (Complete with The Ring type visuals.)  Writer Lauren Beukes fails to make the Asian characters interesting at all.  Even Rapunzel’s relationship with Tomoko fails to generate any heat.  

Reminds me of...

So delightfully gross.

Rating: Nice

14: Reynard the fox goes on a date with Princess Alder, one of Geppetto’s bodyguards.  It literally revolves around him eating his own shit and then kissing Alder, who’s also been eating his shit.  Is this supposed to be funny?  I can’t believe this came from the pen of Willingham.

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Hated

15-20: The return of Prince Charming, now a maharaja in the Jungle Book world.  He falls in love with a local (Nalayani kicks so much ass) who’s intrigued but doesn’t return his feelings (yet).  Not a bad read, but six issues was way too many to spend on this story.

Hughes is SO good at good girl art.

Rating: Nice