What the fuck is wrong with you…

So I was sitting on the bus yesterday, having had to quickly change my plan from walking as reality decided that it was monsoon season and I was without an umbrella. So I picked up a newspaper and saw a small note on a person robbing two women, this is in its own right a bad thing but his choice of victims are what really got me thinking. The target for this theft was two beggars… Seriously… How the fuck do you wake up one morning and decide that the best course of action to sustain your habit is to rob a beggar, and I am going to assume for peace of mind that this was someone very desperate with a deep drug habit and not your average garden variety asshole… Now this is not to say that I cannot understand how this idea enters someone’s mind, what I have a problem with is putting said idea in to action. You… Do… Not… Steal… From… Somebody… That… Have… Resorted… To… Begging… Now one can say what they want about the practice of begging but I think we can all agree too that doing so is never a first choice and that it can be seen as common cutesy to at least not mistreat them. Ignore them all you want but they are actually human beings. And people wonder why I in general does not trust humanity as a whole with a dry sponge without expecting them to hurt them self or someone else with it, it is because stories like this keep reaffirming that it is a good stance to take. That way I at least does not get surprised and it keeps my blood pressure at healthy levels.

Days of furniture paste

So I saw the latest offering in the X-Men movie franchise a little time back, and as with Captain America I went in with a slight sense of dread. You see I really liked the two first x-men movies, and my reaction to the later ones have ranged from a mild sense of WTF for the first class movie to a flat out “why in the name of all things holy and sane did you do that” for the Wolverine: Origins one and having the two others sitting in a murky pool of “I am not sure if I should feel angry or just pity you”

So when I heard that they were going to do the days of future past storyline my initial reaction was… That’s it… Complete with throwing my hands in the air like a diva and stomping around like an angry child. It is safe to say it was not a dignified display. You see the DoFP storyline is kind of a convoluted mess to begin with and it is not one that I feel adapt very well to film. And seeing how well they handled the whole phoenix... thing… I did not put much fate I this new project. The news that they were going to weave together the original storyline and the first class one did not exactly make me any happier. You see while I like first class as a superhero movie it plays a bit too fast and loose with the X-Men I know. I am well aware of the fact that the movies are adaptations and not letter by letter faithful to the comics. That is no excuse to in essence take the lore bible of the X-Men and use its pages to roll a joint.. light said joint… inhale deeply and then use whatever your feverish brain come up with as a base for your story… It was still better than to make Deadpool a mute in the Wolverine origins movie… I know we all have wished it at one point or another reading a Deadpool story but when a character has the tagline “the merc with the mouth” and his entire thing is that he talks a lot and breaks the fourth wall… Making him a mute is pants on head stupid.

Any way I get of track and I will perhaps at some point sit down and re-watch the entire X-Men saga and put up a wall of text about what I think works and don´t. So the short of it is, I went in with the lowest expectations one could have.  The idea that they were going to ret-con a decent amount of the movies away gave me a glimmer of hope. I came out from the movie feeling very… satisfied actually. First of they made the story from DOFP work. Sure a few people where switched and it was set in a time that made it link up to the first class movie rather than “present”. But all in all the details were present and it was a good representation of characters and powers.

Now I am going to stay away from spoiling the plot until this have been off the big screen for a while but it suffice to say that there are a few little fun twists in there and it is really fun to see Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask as he brings the right level of menace to the character.

It is worth mentioning that this is in every way a sequel, it explains nothing really and if you are not familiar with the films that came before or lack a familiarity with the Marvel universe you will be very confused and sometimes even a bit irritated.

Also… It was fun to see the mutant Blink in there… She had a very short stint in the regular comic but made her mark big time in the event-storyline Age of Apocalypse. So I guess we will be seeing a bit more form her in the next movie since the next movie is indeed titled apocalypse and the end credit scene leaves little doubt. Days of Future Past is a good stab at resetting the messy and downright broken continuity of the X-men movie franchise and really fun film. It does not get all the notes right and I know that there are sites out there who have long lists of the things that still does not work if we are to look uon all the films as one single continuity. But for me it did enough and I look forward to see what the next installment can bring now that there seems to be a driving vision behind it all.

When captain America throws his mighty shield.

This will contain slight spoilers.

So while I said I would chew on Batfleck.. I will... but first I am going to nibble on Marvel´s cinematic Captain America.

When the first film was released I was worried, as a long time Marvel fan I kind of like cap´s real world origin as wartime mascot who was later re-invented for a post-war world. He has always been a bit over the top and in many way shares the same morals and values as DC´s Superman but with the added perk of being mostly human. He can be hurt by a thug with a baseball bat. Cap was always the moral core of the teams he was part of.

So what was I worried about, well for one I was worried they would cut out much of cap´s backstory. It is true we do not get much more than a brief glimpse of the life of Mr. Rogers before his transformation in to captain America but what we see is to me very endearing as it gives a very solid image of the person behind the shield and why he act the way he does once he get his powers. Now on the subject of power, there have been a slight upgrade to dear mr. Rogers traditionally have been raised to a level called peak human. In Marvel comics this is equal to near superhuman strength, agility and stamina and also genius level mental proves. But Captain America was never really superhuman. Of course over the years the tone of comics shifted and became more visceral, more violent and with this Rogers started to exhibit superhuman levels of endurance and damage resistance. This is something the movies pick up on and pushes a bit further. The Captain we se in the Marvel cinematic universe is very much superhuman, able to do thing no normal man would… Peak or not. In a way it makes my inner marvel puritan cringe. But at the same time this is more based on the Ultimate universe and if I recall correctly Cap is more superhuman in that universe so it is just a very minor nitpick.

Captain America: The first avenger.

I have a objection with that title… But seeing how much of a mess it would be to try and de-bone the whole relationship between Invaders, Defenders and well Avengers. But the short and long of it is that Cap had nothing to do with the Avengers until his re-boot in the comics. It is in fact the only person who will not in any way be a Avenger who should have that credit, Ant-man… Any way the first Cap movie is a nice origin story, pacing is a bit slow and it is more than a little corny at times but it fits the theme and to be honest I like the fact that Cap is used the same way the original character was used as a war mascot to boost morale and sell war bonds. It was also an understandable choice to make Bucky a grown man and not a pre-teen boy. It would have made for some really weird storytelling by modern standards and I have never been a big fan of kid sidekicks myself. It is also nice that the story remains in the past for most of the time saving the modern time for later movies.

Avengers

Not much to say about the Avengers… It is in my mind the best superhero movie to date. But one of my biggest fears going in to this movie was that they would forgo the traditional setup and pitch Iron Man as the leader due to RDJ´s popularity. I was glad to see that Captain America got to do what he does best, lead people. But as I said not much else to say.  It was nice to see Cap been given a sense of humor.

Winter Soldier

This movie is not really as much a Captain America story as it was a story featuring Captain America. But I still enjoyed it and again we get to see Rogers evolve some more, the scene with his old flame was in honesty heartbreaking. It makes so much sense and is a fairly uncommon way to go about it. Beyond that it is interesting to see Cap go through the whole motion as his world crumbles around him. In the Avengers I sort of got the idea that an alien invasion is so far beyond the reach of Steven Rogers that he simply did not really acknowledge it, he just treated them as another enemy. Here the impact is so much more close to the heart.

So I really like what they have done with Captain America in the cinematic universe. Much more so then what they did with Thor and to some extent Iron Man. It will be interesting to see what they have in store for the character in the coming movies.

Bow and Board

So, this will be the first timely addition to my little soapbox. There will be some other posts that have been sitting on my hard drive for a while posted later.

Today’s subject is the season finale of Arrow and Agents of SHIELD. Now I have followed both series and while I will try to keep this as spoiler free as I can something might slip by if you have not followed the series.

Let me start with Arrow. Over this season we have seen the war between Wilson Slade and Oliver and this season finale brings it all together. Everyone in team Arrow have to go right up to the very edge in order to keep Slade and his army of very angry Bane wanna-be´s from reducing the city to dust. The episode was decently paced and had some interesting turns such as Canary’s arc coming to conclusion in a very nice way. What I don´t like is that the “flashbacks” seem to be a bleeding staple of the run of this show as we will most likely be saddled with them for the next season and I have a creeping feeling that it will cause some interesting continuity problems. But all in all I feel that Arrow end this season on a strong note and I look forward to the next season. Together with the upcoming the Flash and the cinematic adventures coming with Batman/Superman and the rumoured JLA movie I am really looking forward to what will come.

Now on the other side of the fence we have M:AoS, as series that have been battling a uphill battle due to starting at a grass-roots level and having a very weak middle act. But once the last act kicked in the series really picked up and I think their season finale was the strongest episode yet and from an emotional standpoint it kicks Arrows arse from here to next Sunday. It had some really brilliant comedic moments and some very funny fourth wall flirting. It did feel very much like a show that was unsure on if it would be picked up for a second season, we know now that it will be everything is wrapped up very neatly and not very many loose threads are hanging about. That is not to say there is not enough to make me want to see the next season but compared to Arrow that left us with enough threads to make a dreamcatcher it felt a bit weak.

So now with Arrow going strong, M:AoS displaying that it can fill the shoes set out for it and a smörgåsbord of new superhero shows coming like the Flash from the DC stable and with Marvel doing that equivalent of the pasta-test and tossing everything at a wall to see what sticks with shows like ABC´s Agent Carter and the in-house produced Heroes for hire show/shows.. Itis a good time to be a superhero nerd. Now if they could give Beware the Batman another season and bring back Teen Titans i´d be a happy camper.

Next time I will be chewing on Batfleck... Om nom nom.. I bet he taste like fanboy angst.

This is Tomas saying. Keep safe and never grow dull.