Week of Review - X-Men: Evolution's X-23

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It’s day 3 of X-Men week here on the Lido Shuffle and time to address the BEST X-Men show ever made: X-Men: Evolution.  Premiering 4 months after the smash hit that was 2000’s X-Men, X-Men: Evolution was meant to continue the adventures of everyone’s favorite mutants though with a bit of a twist.  The series borrows elements of its aesthetic from the films such as the look of Xavier’s Institute and the more uniform costumes but for the most part feels like a throwback to the ‘70s X-Men stuff rebranded for the modern era, or at least a modern late ‘90s. 

The show focused on the X-Men and Brotherhood as teenagers in high school struggling to balance their lives even as the threats they face grow greater and greater.  It’s one of the most character-driven superheroes shows there is and embodies adolescence shockingly well, comparable to Daria levels of well.  Seriously, I’d be here forever praising it so instead I’ve decided to focus specifically on the show’s most enduring creation: X-23. 

Panel Vision - Fury: My War Gone By

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Today marks the return of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, the first major Marvel show on a network.    This year’s premiere of Marvel’s super-spy series comes with a big dollop of serendipity as it’s hot on the heels of the first new Nick Fury comic book to hit stands since the ‘90s.  Given the situation and the fact I’ve meant to write about this for a while now, I’ve elected to look at the best Nick Fury comic book yet written- My War Gone By.  

I briefly discussed it back in my look at Nick’s many iterations and again while going over his best comic covers, now the time has come at least to tackle it head on and believe me, this is a long overdue review.  Aside from fitting into the double SHIELD theme of this week My War Gone By fits the much broader tone of this moment in American history.  

It’s a vast, complex, sobering cold war story of one soldier’s march through history and towards oblivion, the way we make war, and what drives the American identity- just the thing to read as we begin our own inevitable march towards oblivion. 

Static Thoughts - Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD

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As I write this, it’s the eve of Agents of SHIELD’s 4^th and possibly final season.  To celebrate, I’ve decided to look back on the first time SHIELD was ever adapted to the small screen; the 1998 made-for-TV movie Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, starring David Hasselhoff.  It’s easy to forget this now because of how much Marvel has transformed the cultural landscape but before 1999 virtually ALL of Marvel’s live action output was on TV.  This mainly came from a series of failed pilots in the ‘70s and the Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk show. 

However, after the success of 1989’s Batman and the 1990 Flash TV series Marvel made another go of it on TV, first forming a lucrative deal with Fox for animation (which is where the Spider-Man and X-Men show come from) and then pivoting into a pair of TV movie pilots.  This was the second, basically making it the last Marvel live action TV show before Agents of SHIELD, let’s dive in. 

X-Men: Apocalypse Post-Credits Scene Explained

Edited by Robert Beach 

X-Men: Apocalypse has topped the box office for Memorial Day weekend as our third big superhero team movie of the year and 4th comic book movie overall. Ideally, I’ll have a more in-depth review of the film later on, but as we wait on that, we can talk about is the post-credits scene.  Post-credits scenes (stingers) have become the staple of superhero movies nowadays. To the point audiences have been so trained to expect stingers, it’d be weird if a superhero film didn’t have one (that was a Batman v. Superman slam.) 

The entire idea of post-credits superhero teasers originates in the X-Men franchise, first popping up with X3: The Last Stand’s ending clip of Professor Xavier mind-warping into a comatose patient to escape death. Since then, we’ve had big reveals like Nick Fury in Iron Man, funny shoutouts like Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy, and direct sequel set-up like the Apocalypse teaser in Days of Future Past. What type of scene does X-Men: Apocalypse sport? And what does it mean for the X-Men films going forward?  Let’s find out. Spoilers ahead.

Panel Vision - History of SHIELD

Edited by Robert Beach

Let’s talk about S.H.I.E.L.D. Given that you and I are conversing on the Internet, I’m taking it as a bit of a given that you like or at least know of the Marvel cinematic universe. In less than a decade, the Marvel shared universe of films, TV shows, and one-shots have come to dominate the cultural landscape and occupies the same space in the pop cultural psyche that was once reserved for the likes of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. There are a lot of reasons for that success, but chief among them is how the MCU has used continuity to cross pollinate its various properties, tying the distaff films and show together into a rich tapestry of genres and stylistic affects. 

This has allowed the individual Marvel endeavors to explore their own unique focuses like Captain America’s heavy political metaphors, Guardians of the Galaxy’s emphasis on universe building, or the villain-centric storytelling of Jessica Jones & Daredevil. And at the core of this continuity-driven exploration is S.H.I.E.L.D., the in-universe super spy agency tasked with bridging the gap between the government and the superheroes.  S.H.I.E.L.D.’s had a pretty crazy history in the MCU over the course of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show, yet an even stranger history in the comic books. And today, we showcase that history.

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. 

Comics Rainbow - Nick Fury

So, this Friday marks the return of James Bond to cinemas everywhere.  It’s probably going to be a big deal as director Sam Mendes, the man who brought back widespread audience interest in the Bond franchise.  Additionally it’s starting to look more and more likely that Daniel Craig won’t be sticking with the franchise for much longer so this will probably be the last chances audiences get to see a Bond who can actually do his own stunts.  

Add on top of all that the increasing return to golden age Bond formula with the reemergence of Spectre as villains and Christoph Waltz playing some kind of Bloefeld esc villain and it’s promising to be a memorable blockbuster, especially after Skyfall gripped the world in Bond-mania and made more than double the box office take as its predecessor.  With all that considered I was going to do a Comics Rainbow about James Bond but James Bond doesn’t really have a comic book presence. 

For most of his career the adaptation rights have flittered from one limbo to another while his more adult nature as a character has kept his adventures out of the standard comic book audience.  Remember, for most of the medium’s history comics were made for kids.  However, I’m still getting in on the Bond fun with the next best character: Nick Fury.  Though he debuted in a brief lived Marvel war comic in 1963, Nick Fury didn’t find a mainstream audience till 1965, when he was resurrected as a James Bond/Man from U.N.C.L.E. esc cold war spy.  This was right around the time spies were catching on as a major popular trend so it makes sense Marvel would want to ride that cultural phenomenon.  Since then the Marvel universe super spy has been through a plethora of reimaginings and revitalizations and this is your full spectrum look at all of them; shades, shames, successes and all. 

Quake #1 Review

Quake #1 is meant to be a celebration of the character's graduation to Marvel universe mainstay as well as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the creation of S.H.I.E.L.D.  What it actually is is a soulless marketing cash grab that only serves to cheapen the comics and their characters in the name of tying into Agents of SHIELD, full review on Front Towards Gamer

http://ftg.operationsupplydrop.org/2015/09/11/quake-1-review-comics/

Panel Vision - Secret War

Edited by Robert Beach

At time of writing, the Marvel comics universe is still trapped in its mega-event comic Secret Wars.  This Secret Wars is part of the lead up to Marvel’s first universe reboot and the end of the Ultimate Marvel Universe. The reason I say “this Secret Wars” is because this isn’t the first time Marvel has rolled out a major event comic entitled Secret Wars. 

The original Secret Wars was a 1984 maxi-series produced in conjunction with an action figure line from Mattel. Despite its origins as a marketing tie-in it’s still very well regarded and with good reason. Secret Wars 1984 invented the event comic going forward and holds up very well even to this day as blockbuster storytelling. It sold very well too and even received a sequel comic in 1987 with Secret Wars 2, which is generally despised as a terrible follow up; however, there was a third Secret War in 2004 from superstar author Brian Michael Bendis. That’s what I’ll be looking at today. 

Roger Corman's Fantastic Four

I take a look at the best live-action Fantastic Four adaptation, the 1994 unreleased Roger Corman B-Movie.  My review is up on All-Comic, check it out here:
http://all-comic.com/2015/roger-cormans-fantastic-four/