Week of Review - Mutant X

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A key evolution of the modern age of superhero blockbusters is that more and more the story of a film has become the story of the film’s behind the scenes drama.  Whether it’s the corporate mismanagement of the Amazing Spider-Man films, Josh Trank’s prima donna antics on Fant4stic, or the family tragedy & directorial scarpering of Justice League the behind the scenes stories are now the stories of those films.  

The oldest and largest looming example of this is the Fox/Marvel feud, a war between companies that’s raged for well over a decade.  The two absolutely loathe each other, to the point Marvel has canceled publishing Fantastic Four comics because Fox owns the movie rights and Fox, in turn, was willing to waste everyone’s time and money with Fant4stic.  But where did all this animosity come from, what’s the origin of their feud?  Well, it all goes back to a little show from 2001 called Mutant X- let’s dive in. 

Sony Considering Nightwatch Film

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So, one of the developing superhero universe stories of the late 2010s has been that Sony is looking to continue their own movie-verse that’s adjacent to Marvel’s.  If you haven’t been obsessively following superhero copyright disputes and rights agreements, I’ll try and provide an abridged version.  Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man as well as his attendant mythos of characters but the box office failure of the Amazing Spider-Man films coupled with the North Korea hack eroded the studio’s confidence.  In the wake of dwindling returns, Sony elected to strike a shared custody agreement with Marvel Studios and Disney whereby Marvel would produce a new Spider-Man as part of their universe and Sony would get a share of the profits. 

However, the rest of the Spider-Man stable of characters would have their rights determined on a case-by-case basis, which means Sony can make movies out of those characters without sharing the profits with Marvel/Disney.  So far Sony’s confirmed they’re making a Venom movie with Tom Hardy and Gina Prince-Bythewood is on tap to direct a Black Cat & Silver Sable film.  Now the latest hero rumored to be added to that line-up is a bizarre blast from the past in the form of…Nightwatch. 

Hellboy Reboot Announced

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One of the strange things about the modern age of blockbusters is that despite ‘superhero’ being the biggest genre in the world heroes that don’t come from Marvel or DC just can’t manage to break through.  This rule has been in place pretty much from the dawn of the modern blockbuster/superhero romance in 1978, though there are a few notable exceptions.  

There was a time in the ‘90s when Savage Dragon and Spawn commanded genuine respect, the Witchblade/Darkness franchise has always flirted around the edges of relevance,  and even now the folks at Valiant Comics are committed to turning Bloodshot and Ninjak into multimedia success stories. 

Still, for every one of those examples, there are five or six superheroes that never break through or fail within their first year.  By in large, the public will just never care as much about the likes of Supreme, X-O Man of War, the Occultist, or Green Hornet.  However, we cling to exceptions to this rule that we’ve managed, like the continued viability of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Static Shock.  As such, it really shouldn’t come as this much of a surprise that Hellboy is getting rebooted. 

Panel Vision - The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special

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There’s a Lobo Christmas Movie; did you know that?  I didn’t, and I certainly wasn’t planning to review it before stumbling blindly upon the thing a few days ago while researching a Cover Story.  While not technically falling under any official DC/WB canon and only lasting 13 minutes this thing does exist and was merely memory holed out of collective consciousness.  

Given the short running time this “review” is going to be on the brief side and more about explaining how this happened than reviewing the actual quality of the “film.”  However, the entire movie is up on youtube and is protected under fair use so go ahead and give it a watch if you're curious to know what you’re in for before my explaining how this bizarre link of pop culture sausage got made.

Panel Vision - Invasion!

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The week I’m writing this marks a significant milestone for the shared television universe of DC Comics.  The CWniverse, as I call it, started out in 2012 with the show Arrow, a Green Arrow adaptation that leaned way too heavily on Batman for its identity.  

However, when they introduced Flash as a spin-off series in 2014 things started to improve, even if the first half of Flash season 1 was pretty weak.  The real turning point, for this entire endeavor, was the 2014 Flash/Arrow crossover, a blockbuster event that finally managed to inject light, fun, and weirdness into the CWniverse. 

It also brought in some serious ratings as ever since then crossovers and multi-hero universes.  All of that now culminates in an epic 4-night crossover between Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow adapting the 1989 event comic Invasion.  In honor of the occasion, I’m looking back on the original Invasion! Comics, which is nice because they’re also one of my favorite event comics of all time. 

Cover Story - Top 12 Tick Covers

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While The Tick may not be on everyone’s mind this week he’s certainly on my mind.  His new live action show premiered Friday on Amazon mostly to widespread apathy but it’s reignited my curiosity for the character.  Like him or not, the wild blue yonder is one of the most successful indie superheroes there is, emerging out of the bubbling stew of creativity that was 1980s underground comics to be a major media force in the 1990s. 

In his over 20 year career the Tick has been adapted to live action, animation, video games, and a whole avalanche of comics, to the point that I’d say he deserves to be counted alongside the likes of Hellboy, Spawn, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as one of the truly iconic superheroes not to come from DC or Marvel.  Given all that, and the fact I’ve now got an excuse to re-examine some of his stuff, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 12 covers featuring The Tick. 

Ghost Rider Cast in Agents of SHIELD S3

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So, it’s official; Ghost Rider is coming to Agents of SHIELD and will be played by Gabriel Luna.  In retrospect this was pretty much inevitable.  Agents of SHIELD remains Marvel’s most prominent failure, especially with how much the show has struggled to keep up with a cinematic universe that’s consistently leaving it in the dust, so this kind of shake up was badly needed to try and win back an audience and make the show relevant once more. 

Let me be clear on this, even if you like Agents of SHIELD the show is definitely not what Marvel wanted it to be in terms of ratings or importance, especially compared to the blossoming CW stable of shows or Marvel’s own vaunted Netflix series.  However, the Ghost Rider they’ve conscripted isn’t quite the one everybody knows which means we’ve got to dive into the history of the character to get the full view of what’s going on here. 

Comics Rainbow - Invasion!

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So, this Friday marks the premiere of Independence Day: Resurgence and the return of the seminal alien invasion film to the big screen.  It’s a pretty major event, both as a major summer blockbuster and as an indicator of the growing force of nostalgia for the ‘90s.  We’ll see if the Independence Day lightning can really strike twice but for right now let’s talk about alien invasions in comics.  

The alien invasion is the perfect set-up for the world of the superhero and while both DC and Marvel have thrown together an impressive array of alien takeovers, today we focus on those from DC comics.  There’s no real reason I’m emphasizing DC, they’re just the company I’m most familiar with.  DC has a vast history of alien invasions, some of them amazing, some mediocre, and some absolutely terrible and today we’re going to get the full spectrum on all of them.

Cover Story - Top 16 Walking Dead Covers

What can you say about The Walking Dead?  Well, I can say that another season of the hit AMC comic book show has come to a close, which is the entire reason this article is getting written.  More than that, though, I can say that it is pretty impressive how much AMC’s The Walking Dead has managed to elevate the place of independent comics in terms of their marketability.  Previously, indie comics hadn’t really been a major force outside the comic market since the speculator bubble burst in the ‘90s. 

Back then, names like Youngblood, Spawn, and Savage Dragon were all big names and even though we had Hellboy in the mid-2000s the idea of adapting creator owned indie books to the small screen was more or less written off till Walking Dead got big.  So even though I haven’t read the comic in forever and really don’t like it or the show very much I certainly acknowledge that good things came out of this multimedia phenomena.  So, with that said let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 16 Walking Dead covers.

Panel Vision - 8 Dumbest/Weirdest Punisher Moments

Edited by Robert Beach 

By now you’ve probably joined the rest of the Internet in enjoying the latest season of Marvel and Netflix’s shockingly quality Daredevil show. The fact that Marvel could produce a grim and gritty superhero show out of such a fractured and failed property like Daredevil and have it actually turn out good is pretty impressive. This season Marvel has doubled down on the darkness by integrating the Punisher into its dark and sleazy Netflix corner of the Marvel universe.  

Punisher’s always been a landmark character for Marvel, a violent vigilante who actually kills people in a world of colorful children’s heroes; however, the fact that Frank Castle, man with a gun and PTSD, has to co-exist with the craziness of magic, aliens, and monsters means there’ve been a lot of weird and just plain-old stupid moments in the Punisher canon. Today, we honor them. 

Comics Rainbow - Satan

Let’s talk about Satan.  Currently, Satan is enjoying his slow crawl into the hearts and minds of the public thanks to Fox’s fairly successful Lucifer show, the TV series reboot of The Omen entitled Damien, and the upcoming TV reboot of The Exorcist.  That’s a lot of Satan to go around and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more given the fantasy genre’s current fascination with seminal works of fantastical literature that we’ve all been aware from an incredibly early age.  I mean if King David is getting a TV show and Noah got a blockbuster movie I can see Satan getting more screen time.  As such, I’ve decided to dive into the world of Satan in comics because believe me it is one twisted hell of weirdness and nonsense.

Spawn #256 Review

I continue my troubling obsession with Spawn by reviewing his latest issue #256 which featured the return of the Violator/Clownie...if that entices you go check it out on All-Comic:

http://all-comic.com/2015/spawn-256/

Astro City #27 Review

I take a look at the latest issue of Astro City in my review that Kurt Busiek doesn't want you to see (I assume he doesn't anyway, he tweeted about something about it I am told) check it out over on All-Comic.com http://all-comic.com/2015/astro-city-27/

Spawn #254 Review

More Spawn bashing as I take a look at the latest and terrible issue, this one is the not so compelling story of Spawn doing nothing for 27 pages, don't believe me?  Check out my review on Front Towards Gamer:

http://ftg.operationsupplydrop.org/2015/07/31/spawn-254-review-comics/

Moon Knight #17 Review

If you like this review feel free to 'like' Lido Shuffle on Facebook here or follow me on Twitter here.

My final review for last week is up on All-Comic.com, it's a look at Moon Knight #17, check it out here- 

http://all-comic.com/2015/moon-knight-17/

Spawn #253 Review

Check out my review of Image Comic's Spawn #253 over at Front Towards Gamer, don't let the high number scare you off, it's a stand alone issue,

http://ftg.operationsupplydrop.org/2015/06/25/spawn-253/

Panel Vision - Moon Knight #16

In case you aren’t familiar with him Moon Knight is a Marvel vigilante character created in the ‘70s to fight werewolves.  Since then he’s stayed around thanks to the popularity of his unique visual scheme while his actual character has ended up filtered through a variety of different lenses.  This latest incarnation of Moon Knight takes things somewhat back to the characters roots with an emphasis on supernatural fantasy, though it’s blended nicely with Moon Knight’s role as a gritty urban crime fighter.  The result is a comic that ends up thoroughly informed by ‘90s sensibilities but executed in an infinitely better manner.