Advertisements

Tag Archive: Marvel Comics


Dark Phoenix–Ten character posters arrive for penultimate film in the longest running superhero film series

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
April 30, 2019

 

Does every hero have a dark side?  It’s impossible Quicksilver has a dark side.  But we’ll find out in five weeks as the 12th film in the longest running superhero movie series sees its second-to-last film with the theatrical premiere of Dark Phoenix.  The series that started with X-Men in 2000 began as a knockout with the stellar casting of Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, ultimately interweaving two separate casts that would include the likes of Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Michael Fassbender as a younger Magneto, and James McElvoy as a younger Professor X.  With eleven films across 19 years we’d meet our favorite (or second favorite) Marvel superheroes and supervillains shine in X-Men 2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, Logan, and Deadpool 2.

Every hero has a dark side.

This week post-merger Fox released ten new character posters for the new film spreading that message.

 

Dark Phoenix was written and directed by Simon Kinberg, and stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, and Jessica Chastain.  Kinberg has promised Dark Phoenix will be a more faithful adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Dark Phoenix Saga than seen in X-Men: The Last Stand.

Here are all ten posters:

Continue reading →

Advertisements
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Opening weekend review–Avengers: Endgame wraps up the first big Marvel chapter and nicely segues to the next

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
April 28, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

After 21 movies and a decade of superheroics, the end arrived this weekend with Marvel Studios′ Avengers: Endgame, already setting new box office records.  Nearly every seat at multiple screenings at my local theater was sold out this weekend, as was the case across the country.  Which means many have seen it, but even more haven’t. You can’t review a film without some details, so if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor: bookmark this and come back later.  The short version: If you’re a superhero fan and you’ve followed the previous entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you won’t want to miss it.  But re-watch both Avengers: Infinity War and Captain Marvel first.  I’ve no idea how anyone will follow the events in the film without first seeing at least these two films.  Endgame is a good wrap-up to the first major story arc in the franchise and a fine segue into the future of the films.  But it’s not perfect (what ever is?) and I’m going to walk through some goods and bads from the film.

That means “there be spoilers ahead” so consider yourself forewarned if you continue.

Note to email subscribers: Clicking on the link will take you into the full review.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Delve into the mind of the ultimate power-wielder in Stuart Moore’s novel Thanos: Death Sentence

Filed under: Comics & Books, Superheroes — Leave a comment
April 20, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

Writer Stuart Moore returns this month with a solid follow-up to his multiple superhero-spanning novel Civil War, reviewed here at borg.  Titan Books has released the tenth book in its Marvel Comics-based series of prose paperback novels, Moore’s Thanos: Death Sentence.  Originally published in 2017, this is its first paperback release.  If you’re after a story about Thanos, if you love the character and want to know what makes him tick, and the circumstances around wielding that kind of power during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, then Thanos: Death Sentence is for you.  Those familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Avengers: Infinity War will find no spoilers for the film in this story, and it may just get you excited for the release of Avengers: Endgame in theaters next week.

It’s probably better knowing something about this story before jumping into the dense 336-page novel.  Exciting, brilliant detailed superhero crossover events highlight the novel’s first 100 pages.  In a parallel but different take on Infinity War, readers see Thanos kill off nearly every major superhero in the Marvel universe.  It’s quite fun to read how Moore has Thanos do it, not with a single snap and turn to dust for everyone, but a specific, tailored death sentence for each hero.  Wielding the Soul Stone Spider-Man gets relegated to re-live the death of his uncle through his own inaction, for infinity.  Ben Grimm gets separated into his component stones and dispersed throughout the cosmos.  With the Space Stone Thanos strands Captain Marvel beyond the solar system.  The Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Vision, Prince Namor, Black Panther, all snuffed out.  And then it’s all undone.  And that’s only where this story begins.  The method of the undoing is not something that seems remotely possible for the movies–with far more characters introduced than we’re met on the big screen (since the entirety of the films were made before the merger with Fox to wrap in the rest of the Marvel characters).

Once the deaths are undone, Thanos the Mad Titan is forced to fight his way back to power by Mistress Death using the Infinity Wardrobe, pressed into the bodies of tangent characters in the lives of the famed Children of Thanos–his minions seen in Avengers: Infinity War: Proxima Midnight, Ebony Maw, Corvus Glaive, plus his adopted daughter Gamora.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Final trailer arrives for X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Filed under: Con Culture — Leave a comment
April 18, 2019

Dark Phoenix represents one of X-Men fans’ favorite classic X-Men stories.  We have already seen one take on the Dark Phoenix story, as Famke Janssen’s Jane Grey destroyed everyone she cares about in X-Men: The Last Stand, but after the timeline manipulation in X-Men Days of Future Past we learned again the lesson of the Terminator movies: The future’s not set—There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves–A common theme of comics, too, as characters are killed and reborn again and again.  Dark Phoenix was written and directed by Simon Kinberg, and stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, and Jessica Chastain.  Kinberg has promised Dark Phoenix to be a more faithful adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Dark Phoenix Saga.

For those of us who loved the X-Men movies, this is the winding down of a great era, highlighted by the casting of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, and Ian McKellen as Magneto.  Who will ever forget one of the finest adaptations to film of any superhero from any comic book as Evan Peters became Quicksilver, defending his fellow mutants in the Pentagon?  And the high point of any superhero movie (from Marvel Comics, DC Comics, or anyone else) must be the Academy Award nomination for best screenplay for Logan last year.  Like the competing films in the Avengers films, there were as many high as low points, but some greatness happened throughout X-Men, X-Men 2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, Logan, and Deadpool 2.

For Fox’s long string of connected X-Men films, this is the end.  Check out this final trailer for Dark Phoenix:

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

The War of the Realms–Next Marvel event series begins today with… more variant covers

Filed under: Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Superheroes — Leave a comment
April 3, 2019

Hot on the heels of DC Comics’ big Detective Comics #1000 event last Wednesday, Marvel Comics is stepping in today with its next onslaught of variant covers.  It’s for The War of the Realms, a storyline written by Jason Aaron with art by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson, a Thor-centric event, bringing in the entire pantheon of superheroes from Marvel, the ten realms, assassination plots, and the fate of Earth hanging in the balance.  As Marvel boasts, “no corner of the Marvel Universe will be untouched.”  It even comes with its own theme song.

This is also your typical Marvel Comics multi-series crossover, with tie-in stories twined through several monthlies, like Journey Into Mystery, New Agents of Atlas, Giant-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher, Uncanny X-Men, and Venom, plus Asgardians of the Galaxy, Avengers, Thor, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Champions, Fantastic Four, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Captain Marvel, Deadpool, Superior Spider-Man, Tony Stark, Iron Man, Spider-Man and the League of the Realms, plus War Scrolls and War of the Realms Strikeforce.  That’s a big, twisty storyline ahead for Marvel readers.

The War of the Realms variant covers are on their way with regularly available covers by Arthur Adams, J. Scott Campbell, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Frank Cho, John Tyler Christopher, Oliver Coipel, Amanda Conner, Russell Dauterman (wraparound), Adi Granov, Ron Lim, Nexon, Ryan Ottley, Pyeong Jun Park, George Perez, and Rodney Ramos (international connecting variant with next five issues).  A 1 in 10 variant by Russell Dauterman and Greg Horn, a 1 in 25 variant by Victor Hugo, 1 in 50 variants by Sana Takeda and Joe Quesada, a 1 in 100 virgin variant by Quesada, a 1 in 200 variant by Walt Simonson, and a 1 in 500 black and white Simonson cover.  Plus a blank sketch cover, and retailer incentive covers based on other purchases and store exclusives by Arthur Adams, Amanda Conner, Clayton Crain (trade, virgin) (Frankie’s), Gabriele Dell’Otto, Mike McKone (The Comics Mint) and Skan Srisuwan (Midtown).

That’s 31 in all.

Check them out:
Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Comic book writers and artists featured this weekend at Planet Comicon Kansas City 2019

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Con Culture, Superheroes — Leave a comment
March 31, 2019

As expected Saturday at Planet Comicon Kansas City 2019 meant a great turnout for the annual convention, with tens of thousands of fans from the Midwest converging on the Kansas City Convention Center after a day of rain and morning of surprise March snowfall to meet their favorite celebrity and creator guests from years past and today.  Each year the event gets bigger, and for the show’s 20th anniversary that also meant better, with a host of comic book creators whose names any comic book reader of the past 50 years should recognize.


Creator of dozens of characters including Rogue, Mystique, Phoenix, Emma Frost, Legion, Gambit, and Captain Britain, and whose books include a long run on Uncanny X-Men, including the popular story arcs The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past, adapted into X-Men: Days of Future Past, multiple X-Men movies, and this summer’s coming film Dark Phoenix, writer Chris Claremont was on-hand signing his books for fans.


Artist Denys Cowan studied under the late comics legend Rich Buckler (a previous Planet Comicon guest) and went on himself to become one of the biggest names in comics, drawing issues of several great series from both DC Comics and Marvel Comics including runs on three of my favorites from the 1980s, Green Arrow, Batman, and The Question.  He was signing books and selling prints of some of his best-known work.


Jim Starlin is a well-known writer/artist and creator of Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, the Master of Kung Fu, and his classic books include Batman: The Cult, Batman: A Death in the Family, and Cosmic Odyssey. This weekend he signed autographs for a long line of fans.


Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez began in comics illustrating books for Charlton Comics and then became one of the longest running names associated with DC Comics, where he drew major issues of Superman, Action Comics, The Brave and the Bold, Detective Comics, and later, the pop culture favorite Atari Force.  He signed comics and had prints of his work on hand for his fans.


Most of us knew him from the single word that graced many of his unique and futuristic comic book covers–Steranko.  Pretty much nobody has been making comics longer.  Here Jim Steranko chats with a fan at his booth in Artists’ Alley.  More recently he’s known for his nostalgic recollections he shares with fans in his many near book-length tweets on Twitter.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

International trailer for X-Men’s Dark Phoenix gets it right

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
March 7, 2019

Ever wonder how the studios make the determination to release one version of a trailer in the U.S. and a different version simultaneously elsewhere?  So do we.  Language differences aside, a few cultural distinctions would make sense sometimes, but infrequently.  But how do you explain it with a straightforward superhero movie?  We previewed the U.S. trailer last week here at borg for this summer’s X-Men movie Dark Phoenix.  It looked great.  Then we saw the international version.

The international version leaves out the introduction with a weepy superheroine Jean Grey, but instead offers a developing, linear short film summary that builds and teases like a good trailer should, reflecting the power and excitement the character Dark Phoenix is known for.  And it teases an incredible space shuttle scene.  This is the right trailer to get people into theaters.  Yet it’s not the trailer most Americans will see.

Take a look and see what you think.  Here’s the new international trailer for Dark Phoenix:

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

The gang’s all back again as the X-Men assemble in exciting new trailer for Dark Phoenix

Filed under: Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
March 1, 2019

It’s hard to believe the reboot cast of the X-Men franchise is at its fourth film with this summer’s 20th Century Fox release, Dark Phoenix.  Despite delays caused by studio mergers, this last film before who-knows-what will happen couldn’t look better, an exciting topper on the X-Men movie franchise.  With eleven of thirteen films released so far since the first film, X-Men, arrived with Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, and Ian McKellen in 2000, it’s become the seventh highest grossing film franchise ever.  With a pretty stuffed superhero film market only getting bigger this year (the last of the Fox Marvel films, The New Mutants, follows in August), Dark Phoenix could be the film that dodges the hype, bringing a classic film story and legion of familiar characters into what will hopefully be a solid comic book story adaptation.  Since X-Men: First Class, James McAvoy‘s Professor X, Michael Fassbender‘s Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence‘s Raven, Nicholas Hoult‘s Beast, and (with X-Men: Days of Future Past) Evan Peters‘ Quicksilver are among the best actor/character combinations of all the superhero films.

One of the best parts of X-Men: Apocalypse was the re-introduction of Jean Grey, with Sophie Turner providing an engaging take of the character, along with what might be the best incarnation in any medium of the normally bland Scott Summers, improved upon by actor Tye Sheridan.  Argue it how you want, Marvel Comics has long established the most powerful superhero to be Jean Grey as Phoenix.  And yet among the weakest of the eleven films was X-Men: The Last Stand, the first attempt at revealing her power.  With Dark Phoenix, fans get to see another attempt.  Were the X-Men movies to be transferred a few years earlier into the Marvel Cinematic Universe of Disney, would we be seeing some version of Jean Grey in the position of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, poised to eliminate Thanos in Avengers: Endgame?  Or Deadpool, also, for that matter, who has similarly been nestled in the Fox version of Marvel and written to destroy Thanos before)?

Whatever the climax of Avengers: Endgame, it’s good to know another superhero movie awaits this summer.  Check out the new poster and this stellar new trailer for Dark Phoenix:

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Into the Spider-Verse book showcases behind-the-scenes interviews and photos

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
January 24, 2019

With winter settling in and another cold snap crossing the U.S. and the film’s nomination for a Best Animated Film Academy Award, audiences are continuing to discover Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in theaters (reviewed earlier here at borg).  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse–The Official Movie Special is a new hardcover book going behind the scenes of the movie, and it has a different twist.  The book interviews all three of the film’s directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, who provide different perspectives on working with Phil Lord on the script, and share insight into the pre-production, voice actor recording, and visual effects.

Senior animation supervisor Josh Beveridge recounts the steps of the animation process used for the film, including inkline methodology to make the film look like a comic book, using a large team of animators.  Several pages are devoted to each of Miles Morales and his family, Peter B. Parker, Spider-Man Noir, Gwen Stacy, Peter Porker, and Peni Parker and SP//dr–how each was designed, how each was presented to distinguish their different comic book origins using variations in light, color, and dimension, and how each voice actor approached the performance.  The villains get coverage, too, including the Prowler, Kingpin, Tombstone, and a new Green Goblin and Doc Ock.

The best look at stills from the film released so far can be found in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse–The Official Movie Special.  It also nicely references all the writers and artists that created the various Spider-Verse characters used in the film.  It features concept art and production art from production designer Justin K. Thompson, art director Dean Gordon, and creators Jesús Alonzo Iglesias, Seonna Hong, Patrick O’Keefe, Shiyoon Kim, Yashar Kassai, Naveen Selvanathan, Paul Lasaine, and Craig Kellman.  Voice actors Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, and Hailee Steinfeld also provide contributions.

Take a look inside at a few pages from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse–The Official Movie Special:

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Marvel’s Contest of Champions brings all of the best Marvel universe characters together

Filed under: Comics & Books, Con Culture, Superheroes — Leave a comment
January 16, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

Marvel Contest of Champions is a 2014 mobile fighting game from Kabam, released four years ago on iOS and Android, boasting more than 100 million players.  Based on ideas generated from the 1982 three-issue Marvel Comics series Contest of Champions by Mark Gruenwald, John Romita Jr., and Bob Layton, players select superheroes from across the history of the Marvel universe to battle each other.  Both the original comic and the game key in on the scheming machinations of Grandmaster and the Collector, and if the idea sounds familiar, it may be because it was also featured in Marvel’s big screen Thor: Ragnarok, with Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster pitting Chris Hemsworth’s Thor against Mark Ruffalo’s Planet Hulk-inspired gladiator Hulk.

Initially intended to be based on Marvel’s Super Heroes Secret Wars comics, the Contest of Champions video game features more than 100 playable characters, and includes dozens of others.  The characters as realized for the game and the game environments is the focus of a new book from author Paul Davies, Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm.  The book represents one of the rare assemblages of so many characters from all segments of the Marvel universe.  Showcasing the story by Sam Humphries and artwork by Gabriel Frizzera, Luke Ross, and others, the book is full of great character designs, concepts, and final selections.  It even takes readers beyond the events of Infinity War, although the game does not adhere to the movies.

Readers and game players will find it difficult coming up with characters from Marvel Comics not incorporated into Contest of Champions.  In the book they’ll find updated versions of all the superheroes (and many villains) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, plus the X-Men, Deadpool, Old Man Logan, X-23, Spider-Gwen, Ghost Rider, Howard the Duck, Hyperion, Jane Foster’s Thor, Miles Morales’s Spidey, Kamala Khan’s Ms. Marvel, Spawn, Dark Phoenix, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Cable, Gwenpool, Mephisto, Blade, Carnage, and the Inhumans.  Plus there’s the Netflix Marvel series characters, lesser used characters like the future evil Hulk called Maestro, Magik, M.O.D.O.K., Sentry, Sentinel, Sabretooth, Agent Venom, Morningstar, Guillotine, Karnak, Kang, Doctor Voodoo, Black Bolt, and Venompool.  Both Angela, grand-daughter of Odin, and King Groot are brilliantly realized in the game and the book (shown above).

Here are some preview pages from Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm:

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment