Panel Vision - 2001: A Space Odyssey

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the pinnacles of weird speculative sci-fi films of the late ‘60s alongside the likes of Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green.  The film actually wasn’t a huge success immediately upon release but slowly became a cult classic, allegedly because audiences of stoners would enjoy tripping out to the psychedelic images on display.  

The film proved popular enough to warrant getting a comic book adaptation by the king of comics himself: Jack Kirby.  Kirby liked doing the comic so much and it did so well for Marvel that this led into a new ongoing comic by Kirby exploring his own interpretation of the Monolith and the attendant 2001: A Space Odyssey mythos, which is what I’ll be looking at today. 

Panel Vision - 7 Possibilities for Thor 4

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

Well, this was unexpected.  I don’t mean that Thor: Ragnarok was good or successful, at this point a Marvel movie being pretty good and making money is extremely par for the course.  I mean just HOW good and HOW successful Thor: Ragnarok actually was, effectively bringing this franchise back from the edge almost.  The Thor films have had a very odd trajectory, back in 2011 Thor was a breath of fresh air, a “Shakespeare in Space” adventure movie that was easily the most family friendly of the Phase 1 Marvel films.  

Since then, however, Thor lost a lot of its potential when the 2^nd entry, The Dark World, suffered director problems and got creamed by Hunger Games: Catching Fire and then Guardians of the Galaxy became the new cosmic kid on the block & Ant-Man took over the family-friendly mantel.  

But now with Ragnarok Marvel’s finally got a Thor film with a renewed mass appeal that finally figures out how to use Chris Hemsworth right AND delivered on the large-scale action and mythos the character always promised.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, Thor 4 doesn’t seem like such a crazy possibility, especially with how transient the mantle of Thor is.  So with that said here are 7 possibilities for Thor 4. 

Cover Story - Top 13 Silver Age X-Men Covers

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

It is X-Men time of year here at the Lido Shuffle, as ushered in by the release of their latest blockbuster X-Men: Apocalypse.  As is tradition for these things I’ll be celebrating this new release in the only way I know how: a list of the best X-Men comic covers.  However, given that the X-Men have a truly titanic amount of covers in existence I’m going to pace myself by just taking on the first age of the X-Men.  These are the best X-Men covers from their first issue up until Giant Sized X-Men #1 in 1975, which introduced the more popular team of Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus and more.  

Despite being a lot less popular than the post-1975 stuff this era in the X-Men is still pretty impressive with a lot of unique and formative covers that have remained impressive touchstones in the language of superheroes.  The books low visibility gave the artists a freedom to experiment they might not have had in a bigger title and today, we honor that creativity in list format. 

Cover Story - Top 10 Silver Age Captain America Covers

If you like this post or want to support the blog, please consider donating

This Friday marks the premiere of Captain America: Civil War.  It’s a major event, the first Marvel film of 2016 and the launch of their 3^rd phase that will climax in the epic Infinity War two-parter.  What’s more, this is the first big, multi-hero Marvel film after Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was good but received a less than stellar reception from fans and at the box office, losing out to Jurassic World and Star Wars: Force Awakens in the year end wrap up.  There’s a lot riding on this but at the same time, Captain America has emerged to be the superhero of the 2010s, embodying the ideal of the superhero within the cultural zeitgeist in a way few others have. 

Chris Evans’ Captain America is right up there with Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Michael Keaton Batman, and Toby McGuire’s Spider-Man as the living symbol and ambassador of this whole genre.  Given that wait and circumstance, let’s celebrate this turn of events with another dive into the shallow end to get the Cover Story on the top 10 Silver Age Captain America covers.

Cover Story - Top 12 Inhumans Covers

This coming week will see the return of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, the little TV show that nobody believed in, every one thought would fail, and then did exactly that.  Seriously, despite some moderately decent word of mouth over season 2 Agents of SHIELD has done little more than jog in place for 2.5 season while occupying the least interesting space in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Maybe that’ll turn around this coming half season but I seriously doubt. 

Regardless, we’re not here to talk about Agents of SHIELD but rather the major chunk of Marvel IP they’ve elected to squat on top of: the Inhumans.  I’ve already pretty thoroughly explored the Inhumans in previous articles so today isn’t going to cover much of their history of character make-up but simply the history of great art that has informed the group since its inception at the hands of all-time comic great Jack Kirby.  So, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the Inhumans.

Panel Vision - Batman: Book of the Dead

Today marks the premiere of what’s sure to go down as one of the most notorious flops of 2016: Gods of Egypt.  There are a lot of reasons Gods of Egypt is more or less destined to fail, not the least of which is the horrendous white washing that informs so much of the films representation of the ancient Egyptians.  However, the mysticism of Ancient Egypt has always had a hard time working its way into the popular consciousness.  The most any of us know about the faith of Egypt tends to come from the cavalcade of Mummy movies produced by Universal and Hammer films, hence why Anubis is the most well known Egyptian deity. 

Egyptian myth is funny that way, the deities are all instantly recognizable and unique but beyond visual recognition their particular brand of aesthetics just doesn’t capture the imagination.  My theory is that it’s because the mythic Egyptian oeuvre has already been colonized by a far more dominant informing genre than fantasy adventure: science fiction and as evidence I submit Batman: Book of the Dead, in which Batman proves the gods of Egypt came from space.

Cover Story - Top 10 Golden Age Captain America Covers

Hello and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comics as possible.  This coming week represents the anniversary of Captain America’s creation, a landmark moment that’s being celebrated with a lavish special on ABC alongside the Agent Carter 2 hour premiere.  Given this is also the 240^th anniversary of America’s funding and the premiere of Captain America: Civil War, the third installment in what’s become the definitive superhero franchise of this era, it’s a good time to be Captain America that, I’ve decided to showcase some Cap covers this week.  However, much like Wonder Woman there are so many Captain America comics I could never cover them all in one go so these covers are just the Golden Age Captain America issues IE ones from the 1940s.  So, let’s jump into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 10 Captain America covers of the Golden Age of comics. 

Panel Vision - Legends

In March 1986 DC Comics would change the course of the comic book medium and superhero genre forever in the conclusion to their major event comic Crisis On Infinite Earths.  The conclusion featured the first ever universe reboot and a line wide relaunch, essentially allowing the company to start over from scratch after nearly 20 years of continuity.  It was a risky move in a long history of risky moves DC had been making throughout the late Silver Age such as launching numerous non-superhero comics, selling their merchandising rights to Kenner toys, and launching the Superman movie. 

The revival was a major success but with it came new issues, mainly based around establishing the comic universe’s new status quo and where a lot of characters from the previous era stood now that everything had reverted back to square zero.  So, in November of 1986 DC launched a special 6-issue mini-series entitled Legends written by John Ostrander and Len Wein with artwork by John Byrne, let’s take a look. 

Ryan Coogler Directing Black Panther

So, the first major comic book adaptation news story of 2016 is officially here with the announcement that Ryan Coogler will be directing Black Panther for Marvel Studios.  This is one of those announcements that’s been in the post for a long time but it’s nice to finally have official confirmation on it.  Black Panther has been lingering over Marvel’s phase 3 schedule alongside Captain Marvel ever since they both got bumped from the 2017 spot by the new Spider-Man movie so getting some kind of information on it is thoroughly welcome.  At the same time it’s great to see Marvel pursuing an African American director for the film, especially an up and coming talent like Ryan Coogler. 

Coogler may be new but so far he’s shown amazing directorial skill mixed with a consummate and confident sense of vision that makes him feel like an old pro.  His twin success, Fruitvale Station and Creed, have helped make him a serious name in both critical circles and with audiences so throwing him the reigns to a big budget Marvel superhero film feels like the next natural step in his evolution as a filmmaker.  However, Black Panther isn’t just a big budget superhero film, it’s an adaptation of the most important black superhero of all time and possibly the biggest mark for diversity in this genre since Blade.

Cover Story - Top 15 Nick Fury Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

Hello, and welcome to Cover Story: digging as little into comic books as we can. Cover Story isn’t exactly a new column around here as I’ve been doing “Top Cover” lists since August. now, I’m just giving it a name and making it an official weekly column alongside Comics Rainbow and Movie Monthly. With that said, let’s dive into this week’s cover subject: Nick Fury. 

I’ve already talked at length about Nick Fury earlier this week and how he served as Marvel’s super spy answer to James Bond, and how he’s been through numerous iterations in his 50-year history.  I’m mainly focusing on him because Spectre came out this week, and I’m a sucker for topicality. At the same time, Nick Fury’s various covers feature work by some of the greatest artists in comic book history, including Jim Steranko, a towering legend of the medium and concept artist for Indiana Jones. So let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Nick Fury covers. 

Fox Launches 2 X-Men TV Shows

Edited by Robert Beach

After months of hearing nothing from either camp, it seems some agreement has been reached between Marvel and Fox to allow Fox to make X-Men TV shows…kind of.  Rather than making a TV Show out of anyone attending Xavier’s school or its sundry collection of graduates, these new shows will focus on some of the quasi-villains and supporting characters of the X-Men mythos. 

The two announced shows coming soon to TV are Hellfire, a show about the eponymous Hellfire Club last seen in X-Men: First Class, and Legion, revolving around the mentally unstable yet extremely powerful son of Charles Xavier. One thing is for sure: this is a major milestone in the Fox/Marvel beef that has everyone speculating, especially in the wake of early rumors that Fox had deferred the Fantastic Four rights back to Marvel. 

Panel Vision - The Origins of Devil Dinosaur

Edited by Robert Beach 

Based on the monster success of Jurassic World, the hype for Pixar’s upcoming The Good Dinosaur, and the knee-jerk reactionary nature of geek media reporting that I so thrive in, dinosaurs are about to be the next big thing. Even if that’s not the case, Marvel comics certainly seems to think so as they’ve green lit a new comic iteration of the 1978 character Devil Dinosaur. 

This new comic will revolve around the adventures of Devil Dinosaur in modern day as he pals around with his new human friend Moon Girl, a young black girl. This is great news for me because I’ve been a fan of Devil Dinosaur since high school, but it occurs to me a lot of folks excited about this announcement don’t know much about the classic Devil Dinosaur. Allow me to enlighten you. 

 

Panel Vision - Top 10 Tales to Astonish Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

I love comic book covers. That shouldn’t come as a major surprise to people, I review comic books on 2 different geek websites and manage my own geek blog with a specific subset of blog post dedicated to comic books; however, I’ve concluded that’s not quite enough comic book worship to fully express my love, so I’ve decided that every other Saturday I'm going to post a listicle of great comic book covers. 

Partly this is because, as I mentioned, I love comic book covers, so this is a pretty easy way to produce content quickly.  Starting out with top 10 Tales to Astonish covers, specifically because I reviewed an issue of Groot earlier this week, and this is the comic in which he first appeared.  With that said, let’s begin.