It's a leap across the Spider-Verse, and that means bringing the gang together from across space and time. Join Jamie, The Dug and Ryan as we ponder the latest installment in the adventures of Gwen and Miles. Join us as spin a web of conversation, and try to decide if this movie is Signal Watch Canon.
Much as Carl Barks was "the Good Duck Artist" to a generation or three, Romita was, to me, THE Spider-Man artist. Sure, he did plenty else, but his work on Spider-Man was so foundational to the character, his design and humanity brought to each panel, a key player in re-figuring the style at Marvel, and therefore the style of modern comics.
The world of Spider-Man was surely full of colorful characters, but they weren't defined by their powers, they had unique personalities and character, and Romita brought it right to the surface.
He was also the artist who brought classic moments we're still dealing with in comics.
Like, the intro of Mary Jane Watson.
and, of course, everything with the Stacy's.
And that's how everything ended up with Gwen and Captain Stacy. Everyone cool and living happily ever after.
I love this era of Spidey. It's the height of personal and super-hero drama, and has Spidey working in a milieu I think he operates in best. And when I think of this era, sure I think the title is well written, but it's also the Marvel Method, which means Stan worked out a storyline with the artist and cut them loose, to come back and fill in dialog later. So it's artistic storytelling, refusing to rely on text or words.
We'll miss knowing Romita Sr. was out there. We lost a giant this week.
Danny (of Superheroes Every Day) and I talk the 2023 critical kryptonite and box office disappointment that is one of Marvel's greatest missteps to date. Join us as we pick up this particular dud and keep turning it over to figure out what worked, what didn't, and how this thing even came out of Marvel Studios.
On Friday night I watched the mostly panned Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, and on Saturday spent an ungodly amount of time discussing the film with Danny for the Superheroes Every Day podcast. Spoiler: it wasn't my favorite movie. And so it was that here, deep in Marvel Phase 5, that I finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).
You'd have to listen to the podcast and read between the lines on other posts to know how I feel about Marvel these days. It's an affection, but one that knows where we're at in the scheme of creation and the realization that what always worked will not always work, and that they're now on to properties that have always struggled within the Marvel portfolio, while still not dishing up a Fantastic Four movie that we all know is coming.
As has been largely agreed upon, James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy solidified the lessons of Iron Man (and to a lesser extent, Thor) and re-positioned how Marvel designed its films into action-comedies with heart. GotG somehow, against all odds, managed to make you care about a tree with one line of dialog, an asshole space-raccoon, a manchild with knives, a mass-murderer, and a slacker with delusions of grandeur. Plus a redneck pirate! The heart part was a bit surprising as we watched our leads kill a ship full of pirates, etc... Not the usual side of superheroes.
Danny invited me back to his podcast at Superheroes Every Day. This go-round, we are discussing the 2003 pre-MCU version of The Hulk, which features many things occurring, not least of which is Jennifer Connelly.
As with all Superheroes Every Day movies, we break it up by 3 acts and discuss them, with parts released on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
We watched this at the beginning of February when it was released. I am holding comment until we re-watch and podcast it. I won't spoil you on the movie or - I guess - what we'll say about it.
But I do need to note that we did see it, so here's a post.
This was actually the last movie I watched in 2022. I have cedar fever something fierce, so it was not really time to watch something new I'd never seen before. So in between naps, I watched a favorite.
The movie has flaws, and maybe even feels like it's part of a wave of movies that came before the Marvel-era, which makes sense. Directed by Hollywood staple Joe Johnston and with an eye toward what I'd consider the 1960's-era of WWII movies which inspired the Howling Commando comics it borrows from, it's also got a terrific old school story about a guy with a good heart and the girl who believes in him. I recall concern when the movie was being made and headed to release that Captain America was too old fashioned and not in line with the view of today - not like hip, wise-cracking Tony Stark - and that's missing the point of Cap. And the line Cap draws from what we know and acknowledge as outright evil in humanity worth fighting, and that that brand of heroism and clarity of purpose is something that absolutely makes sense in any era.
It's a Marvel villain who is truly villainous, not someone with a perspective worth considering - from the comics, I have wanted to hit the Red Skull with a sledgehammer for years before the movie, and the movie *nails it*.
The pacing of the movie is also flatly incredible. A two-hour run-time, it covers over a year of time, something other Marvel films don't ever really do, even if they include flashbacks (see: Captain Marvel). I kept trying to find a place to pause the movie to do things that needed doing, and suddenly I was looking at the flying wing and knew we were in the last twenty minutes.
And, of course, an all-star cast, which is maybe the secret-sauce to Marvel Phases 1 and 2. Sure, Chris Evans was somewhat known, and Sebastian Stan, Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper unknowns here, but Tommy Lee Jones, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving? Not a bad foundation of talent to make sure the kids knew what was what. Throw in Neal McDonough as Dum-Dum and the rest of the Howling Commandos, and it's a fascinating mix.
Anyway - this movie also produced one of the longer podcasts we did early on.
It's hard to measure the impact of Stan, but it's sure looking like Stan, Jack and the Merry Marvel Bullpen may be among the most important and influential writers and artists of the past century.
Among comics fans, Stan's legacy and life are hotly debated, but there are a lot of versions of the truth. I understand the various viewpoints, but life is complicated and if anyone understood that and related it in a medium often caricatured for its simplistic morality plays, it was Stan.
When I think of Stan, I think of a guy who wanted to push a medium reeling from years of being a political pinata, that had become a punchline and a disgrace for many in America, and tell stories that were both wondrous and relatable. That's not nothing. Making gods feel like people you could talk to is no mean feat. And, of course, the Mighty Marvel Manner of storytelling he pioneered with his colleagues has come to define how we tell serialized stories, inter-connected stories, and allowed for flawed and multi-dimensional characters.
In the end, this meant Stan helped push the medium to become something of interest to older readers, college kids and created the life-long comics reader and fan and make the fantastic something that climbed out of the kiddie-lit gutter and into the mainstream - even if it meant getting off the newstand and into theaters, like he'd worked towards for decades.
Like all lives, Stan's was complicated. The amazing, explosive success of the Marvel Universe of characters didn't come until Stan was on the edge of retirement - after decades of trying. It took a generation of kids raised on Stan's characters in television, cartoons, comics, t-shirts and toys to become adults and start making the movies we always knew were possible - because those characters truly did inspire us and make us want to be better people.
This fit the dictionary definition of "fine". I'm not mad I watched it, I wasn't against what the story was trying to do, but as pal JAL rightfully pointed out, the Marvel machinery seems to have taken over for a portion of the film, and I'm not sure it was to the movie's benefit.
Werewolf By Night is no one's favorite thing in comics, and if I'm tracing the lineage correctly, the character (Jack Russell, which surely is someone @#$%ing about) appeared in 1972 at what I'm assuming was part of the 1970's monster explosion as classic horror became hip for kids again. But, also, the Comics Code was no longer nun-teacher strict about rules, and things like "no vampirism, no werewolfism" were stricken from the code.
This thing is a kind of neat experiment by Marvel - making essentially a TV special that works much in the same way we used to get both the famous kids' stuff like Charlie Brown, but also some older-skewing fare. Werewolf By Night is maybe 45 minutes, has a more humble budget than, say, Endgame, and exists as a fun holiday treat. But it's Marvel, so it's also opening the door to the weird and horrific corners of the Marvel U from whence we get Blade the Vampire Hunter (still in development), actual Dracula, but also fellows like Man-Thing.
But as a 45 minute, moderately budgeted film, it's also led by a first time director in Michael Giacchino, who you know as one of the current wave of actually very talented film scorers. Why direct? I have no idea. But I do think, the oddball impact is that you can see what rails Marvel clearly puts around directors as a support system and to ensure certain bits of quality are maintained. But, in this case, I'd say that's where the film gets away from them.
The film has the vibe of someone trying to borrow from Universal horror pictures who doesn't actually know what made up the 1930's and 40's Universal cycle of horror's look and feel. It is definitely in black and white (which some Marvel horror was in the 1970's, natch), but it lacks a certainly visual moodiness and the weight of scenes moored by cameras the weight of an automobile. I am not insisting that anyone shoot everything in American shots for 45 minutes on grainy film, but continuous camera movement is not how Tod Browning and James Whale were shooting movies. It lacks the expressionistic ethos or methods used in both Universal and RKO horror - ie: anyone can turn down color-gradient, not everyone knows what to do next.
Well. Against all sense or reason, we did it. Our final episode of intense coverage of Marvel's "Inhumans" comes to lengthy conclusion as we try to figure out what is happening and why and to whom and if anyone might care. We'll ponder Rubbermaid storage on the Moon, moonquakes, and trying to use the same hallway set over and over. Let's ponder a royal family you might just want to rise up against yourself.
Oh, the Inhumanity! We reach the plodding 5th and 6th episodes, which feel like a whole lot of filler and not a lot of thriller. Once you get past realizing Dave is one hell of a right-on dude, you're in for more casual disregard for the sanctity of life, slow working drug dealers, and trying to remember Sammy is on the show. Oh, and Maximus is very, very sensitive. Mostly, the show is filling space and killing time til we can get to the final two episodes.
Jamie and Ryan sit down with Marvel's return to Asgard that apparently people didn't like, and we're not exactly sure why it got the hate. Join us as we harness up the goats and take off on a journey through a movie that takes us all over and manages to really land their use of Guns n Roses.
Danny and Ryan discuss episodes 3 and 4 of the ongoing tale of a bunch of mutant moon men kicking around Hawaii - all part of a TV series which made Marvel decide network TV was probably a terrible idea. Let alone doing it on a budget. Join us as we recount the puzzling adventures of our "heroes".
For some reason, Danny and Ryan are talking Marvel's biggest failure - the 2017 attempt at a network TV adaptation of one of Marvel's highest concepts. The show dares to ask the question "sure, that's a neat idea, but what if we eliminated everything interesting about it?" We discuss the first two episodes (of eight) of the ill-fated show, and ponder what, exactly, was going on at Marvel and ABC?
Well. Here we are in Part 2 of talking about a not-good movie. We continue on our journey of discovery as we track the progress of a ninja, a girl you kind of wish she wouldn't work so hard to protect, and people really committed to dressing up as ninjas. Plus, flying bedsheets as cinema. Let's talk flying electric snakes.
Join Danny and Ryan for Part 1 of 2 as we go way, wayyyy too long discussing the 2005 sorta-super movie about a girl, her little swords, and a regrettable career choice. We'll dig for movie treasure as we take you on a conspicuous road trip and watch our problems disappear into a puff of green smoke.
Jamie and Ryan take a multidimensional look at Marvel's Magical offering from earlier in 2022. Join us as we jump around looking at a Marvel film from a novel point of view, scale a mountain of plot, and consider what magic Marvel is spinning as they expand the multiverse of possibility.
Danny and Ryan break a Signal Watch record, talking about a movie for longer than the run-time of that movie. Because when it comes to 2003's superhero offering, we need to take this to court and then give it the beatdown. We're jumping off skyscrapers of logic and throwing billy clubs of criticism as we echo-locate what it's all about.
It's not easy being green whilst filing writs of habeas corpus
On May 17th, the trailer hit for Marvel's She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law multi-episode series, which is set to begin on Disney+ in the coming months.
When talking to pal GadK about the trailer last night, I had to put aside 30-something years of personal knowledge and history and consider what the hell She-Hulk looks like to someone unversed in the character. Which, for us old man comic nerds, is an increasingly common occurrence.
Here's that trailer.
We're just in a weird, weird part of whatever the arc will be for superheroes media in our very own reality and continuity. We're moving rapidly away from how superheroes were understood by the broad population as costumed do-gooders who fight obvious bad-guys in melodramatic four-color battles, an impression derived from barely understood comics of a by-gone era.
What a non-comics person should know: At some point, the various genres of comics that appeared across a range of comics (romance, western, etc...) seeped into various genres of the booming superhero genre and sparked endless iterations and permutations - and that is what you will now get at your local comics shoppe. And it means things in Marvel and DC comics adapted to TV and movies will get weirder than a sarcastic space raccoon post haste.
