Tag: captain america

September 14 / / Marvel

If you’ve been following along with what’s being going on with the Marvel Universe right now, you’ve noticed that your favorite books have been missing. If you haven’t been following along, then don’t feel bad, it’s quite confusing because Marvel’s summer story arc, Secret Wars, has been dominating their current lineup.

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If you’re not too familiar with the 1984 Secret Wars, the story revolved around a place called Battleworld where a supreme being called the Beyonder brought the characters of the Marvel Universe together to fight it out. So, what’s the difference with this summer’s Secret WarsEverything, except the name of the story arc and the place Battleworld.

July 28 / / Movies

Hey Shortboxers! This review of Marvel’s newest installment to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a bit late but we’re here to chat all things Ant-Man. But before we do, if you haven’t checked out our Just the Facts: Ant-Man post, we recommend reading that first and foremost. It’ll be worth it, believe me.

May 2 / / Movies

Today, Marvel fanboys (and fangirls) were given another chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Joss Whedon’s 2nd Avengers installment that brings back our favorites from the 1st Avengers movie. I took a long lunch with my work team to watch this movie, which I’ll refer to as Avengers 2 from this point forward, in IMAX 3D glory. And my one word impression of it is: WOW!

April 27 / / Industry

Retroactive Continuity, or Retcon, for short is a term that is all together too common in the comic book world. It basically means that there’s an alteration to an established fact within continuity, and comic book writers use this strategy to add, remove, and of course, alter stories.

With all the stories being written and new creative teams taking the reins for various properties, there always a chance things will get retconned. As a reader, it’s something that I don’t personally enjoy but I understand where publishers and writers are coming from. It sort of reminiscent of the music industry where nothing is original anymore. But with so many talented creatives entering the comic book industry, new stories are being thought up with fresh perspectives such as Scott Snyder’s addition to the Batman canon with his Court of Owls story arc or Francis Manapul’s work on The Flash.

But retcon examples litter the stories we read.  A prime example when a writer added something that wasn’t already established within continuity is what Brian Wood began on IDW’s Star Wars before Kieron Gillan picked up the mantle when it moved over to Marvel. Wood started to write stories that involved all our favorite Star Wars characters from the point after the Battle of Yavin, right after Episode 1: A New Hope.

March 3 / / Industry

With an onslaught of upcoming comic book movies on the horizon and a ton of rumored properties being adapted from the pages of a comic book to the silver screen, the only thing a comic fan hopes is that the portrayal of their favorite character isn’t construed into something that falls short. I can reference a few of movies that didn’t go as well as the big studios hoped, the most glaring one being Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds. And if you’re an older nerd like me, the glaring one from our childhood was Daredevil starring Ben Afleck.

I mention those movies and leading actors because I’m sure that any comic fan has an opinion on which actor or actress they would like to take on the mantle of their favorite superhero. And if you’re like me, and not a Hollywood casting agent, our choices will probably never come true but we can always speculate and hope. Fan casting is something that I enjoy because I’m purely motivated by the source material whereas Hollywood studios factor in a lot of other things in their decision to cast an actor for a role. I’m not saying that they are to blame for when movies flop at the box office. There are a lot of factors but we’re only human and finding someone to blame for the catastrophe of a movie that X-Men: The Last Stand, the 3rd X-Men flick, was, helps me sleep at night.

January 13 / / Marvel

Don’t feel bad if you have to read pages from Kurt Busiek’s Avengers Forever several times over to understand what’s going on. Traversing space and time to save the entire human race from existence in all time lines is no easy task. It fact, it literally took thousands of Avengers.

Here’s the gist: Immortus, the Master of Time, defender of the time stream is set to kill Rick Jones. For Rick Jones, as you’ll find out, is the key to the most powerful force in the universe, the Destiny Force. Just when Immortus’ soldier, the Tempus, is about to smash an incapacitated Rick Jones, Kang the Conqueror warps into existence to stop him and the hordes of soldiers Immortus plucks from the past to fight for him. Here’s the catch – Kang IS Immortus. Just a younger, more counquerer version of him. As Kang starts to slowly lose to Immortus’ strength, Rick Jones inadvertently triggers his Destiny Force to pull in 7 Avengers from the past, present and future. Now they must ally with one of their archenemies to defeat an even greater threat, Immortus. Still with me?

January 7 / / DC

I’ve been an avid comic book reader ever since I stepped foot into my first comic book shop, years ago in the early 90’s. It was one of those hole in the wall stores behind a Montgomery Ward department store that had an assortment of comics, toys, and collectible cards. This was what I considered my local comic store, and, I left the store every Friday with a bag of goodies to keep me busy until the following week. Fast forward to today and I still make the trek to my local comic store every Wednesday to pick up a bag of goodies, but there is another way that I consume comics, too, through the digital realm.

December 20 / / Weekend Shorts