Categories
Movies

Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame poster

Growing up I was big into comics, especially the Marvel titles. My favorite comic was probably Infinity Gauntlet #4. That’s the issue, where the hero’s team up with Dr. Doom to lose in a fight with Thanos wielding the Infinity Gauntlet. My buddy Wes and I read and would draw pages from that comic on many occasions, it was great.

So when the Marvel movie machine started 11 years ago, I was excited but also skeptical. Up to that point, Hollywood always seemed to fine a way to ruin years and years of great comic stories and plots.

The 11 year run has been pretty great. I’ll never forget how excited I was when they revealed Thanos at the end of the Avengers film in the post credits. I instantly knew what was in store, just didn’t know how many films and years it would take to get to the end.

Avengers: Infinity War was pretty great. If focused on Thanos and ended with the snap. An iconic moment that any fan of the 90’s comics knew was inevitable.

The conclusion to 11 years of Avengers: Endgame was great. I had a couple of theories going for how it would turn out, and I have to admit they surprised me quite a bit. It made 3 hours and 1 minute go by in a breeze.

While the quality of the films and storytelling has been excellent and exceeding my expectations, I can never get over at how the films have gone so mainstream. Growing up, only a few of us were hooked on this amazing world.

Last night I couldn’t even begin to count how many people were there to share the end of this story. People of all different ages and backgrounds, sharing a common interest. It was pretty awesome to be a part of.

Categories
Movies

Thor

Thor

Since one of my all-time favorite comic book heroes has always been Thor, I was really looking forward to seeing the movie. I even made sure that I saw the 3-D version (not really a big fan of 3-D movies in general). Since I’ve read so many comics growing up I’m always hesitant when a comic film comes out, the number of bad ones greatly trumps the number of good ones.

I was very glad to see that Thor was well done and definitely got my approval of a good film adaptation of one of the cooler comic book characters. While the story was altered a little bit for the film, it wasn’t anything too major (Jane Foster is and astrophysicist not a nurse, etc.).

The Asgard scenes were really amazing. I was glad to see how true they stuck with the comic interpretations of Asgard and the other realms. The battles with the frost giants were great, and really displayed just how off the charts powerful Thor is.

There was a decent mix of humor along the way as well, but not too much as to take away from the serious nature of the story. Loki and Odin were very well done too. Not too over the top or evil in Loki’s case.

I was glad I hung around till the end of the credits. There’s a pretty good hint as to what might take place in the upcoming Avengers movie if you do stay around long enough to see.

Categories
Books

Marvel 70th Anniversary Collection

While on lunch break with NGM I noticed the Marvel 70th Anniversary Collection at Borders. It’s a reprint of several comics over the 70 years that Marvel has been putting stuff out. I didn’t buy it that day, but a few days later I found myself picking up a copy to read over.

Growing up I was a huge comic book reader, especially anything being put out by Marvel. So I was excited to see that the following were reprinted in full color in this collection:

  • Marvel Comics #1 1939
  • Captain America Comics #2 1941
  • Captain America Comics #3 1941
  • Journey into Mystery #6 1953
  • Tales to Astonish #13 1960
  • Amazing Adult Fantasy #10 1962
  • Fantastic Four #13 1963
  • Strange Tales # 115 1963
  • Amazing Spider-Man #50 1967
  • Avengers #93 1971
  • Iron Man #128 1979
  • Uncanny X-Men #128 1980
  • Daredevil #168 1981
  • Incredible Hulk #340 1987
  • Marvels #0 1994
  • Avengers #4 1998
  • Ultimate Spider-Man #13 2001
  • New Avengers: Illuminati #1 2007
  • Captain America #25 2007

The only story that I had read previously was Uncanny X-Men 128, with the Hellfire Club. It was one of my favorites anyway so I was glad to read it again. Actually issue 129 which isn’t included was one of my all-time favorites. It’s when Wolverine pretty much becomes a major character in comics in my opinion.

The early Namor story was extremely violent. I’m was surprised to see such violence in a book published  back in 1939. Once I got the the Fantastic Four #13 in April of 1963 I started to enjoy reading these much more. At that point that’s where all the characters I’d grown up reading about started to make their early appearances.

The “Elektra!” Daredevil #168 was a very good read even though I was very familiar with the story by now. I also enjoyed New Avengers: Illuminati #1 a lot. It was cool to read something very recent that was still pretty cool to read.

At $25 I think this was quite the bargain for all these great stories.