Comments on: 2007: The Year That Sucked Balls

By: Fishcakes

Fishcakes — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:54:11 +0000

if, in 2008, Wolverine is given a rocket-powered funny car, amusing derby-hat wearing comedy sidekick, and the hobby of juggling potatoes, learned from a ten-year journey through the back counties of Ireland, because Marvel seems absolutely determined to overcomplicate and dilute the essence of one of their best and most enduring commercial properties as much as possible.

You should write every comic, ever, not just the Legion.

By: Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Jan. 3, 2008: All ages, male and female

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:07:17 +0000

[...] “Dan Didio’s latest comments about how the fans just don’t appreciate all the hard work that’s going into Countdown To Final Crisis are completely misdirected. You see, we know perfectly well how much work is going into Countdown: it takes a lot of work to write a year-long weekly series, multiple tie-in miniseries, and more one-shots than I can conveniently remember (with many, many colons and liberal use of the word ‘presents’). We know it’s not intended to be haphazard, boring, or gratituous. Unfortunately, though, it is haphazard, boring, and gratituous, and there literally has not been a single Countdown book, not one single, solitary, lousy issue, that has been readable — let alone ‘good.’ It’s all a vast morass of cheap fanboy porn masquerading as a story, ‘what if’ concepts in plot’s clothing.” – Christopher Bird [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:45:55 +0000

So basically, Wolverine is Peter Griffith, and Sabretooth is the chicken. Gotcha.

Funnier dance sequence…Peter getting his SNF on, or the Master doing a number to Scissor Sisters’ “I Can’t Decide” in the finale of Doctor Who?

By: Pat

Pat — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 01:12:41 +0000

I like the Wolverine/Sabretooth bit for two reasons:
1) Sabretooth works as a foil to Wolverine, who is usually trying not to go batshit crazy and make people afraid of him, whereas that is Sabretooth’s forte.
2) Irregardless of all their normal knockdown, dragout fights throughout the year, they meet up once a year to try to kill the shit out of each other.

Admittedly, I’ve not payed much attention to the X-books since the nineties (excepting Morrison’s run), so it wouldn’t surprise me to find out Sabretooth is a decendent of Peter the great’s hunting werewolves, and was adopted as a stray by Aunt May.

By: Evan Waters

Evan Waters — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:37:02 +0000

I honestly enjoyed all the silly “Dark Peter” stuff, because instead of an angsty Dark Hero Smoldering With Generic Rage we got him enjoying himself and actually a light approach to the whole thing.

It’s a flawed film, I’m not going to argue that, but the dancing I enjoyed.

By: Chris S

Chris S — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:51:59 +0000

I have a theory about Spider-Man 3: Sam Raimi REALLY wanted to make a musical, but the studio told him he had to make a Spider-Man movie instead.

By: Coren

Coren — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:31:15 +0000

It’s not a vengeance thing. It’s not Punisher striking out and killing everyone cuz that’s what was done to him (I’m over simplifying, I know). It’s not Batman, driven by the need to make sure no one else suffers what he did. It’s basically fulfilling someone’s last wishes. It’s living up to the legacy Uncle Ben left him.

Basically, when I think of that retcon, I think of Sins Past and how that wrecked a lot of motivation and emotion from that whole story.

By: Zenrage

Zenrage — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 13:00:27 +0000

Oh, I think the Spider franchise jumped the shark at the “Raindrops keep falling on my head” sequence in SM2. The Peter Parker “bad boy” dance scene was a breath of fresh air in comparison. He might have been acting like a showboating idiot, but at least he wasn’t WHINING anymore.

Plus, I have to give props to any film that can piss off so many Gwen Stacy and Venom cultists. If any segment of comic book fandom deserve to be marginalized, its them.

As far as the PotC goes, its usually been the fact that the 2nd movie was the boring one and the first and third movies were great. This series totally turns that around. The only entertaining one of the three was Dead Man’s Chest. I think, ultimately, At World’s End was trying too hard to be a Terry Gilliam movie.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:42:07 +0000

@ El Bastardo Magnifico: while there’s the guilt angle lost, I had picked up somewhere along the line the clearly false impression that Spider-Man would still have the responsibility to use his power to help people whether Uncle Ben died or not. To me, that whole angle about “with great power comes great responsibility” meant that you did the right thing to the best of your abilities no matter what, and for me it put Spider-Man in the category of guys like Superman and Captain America rather than Batman and the Punisher. I thought that that was sort of the deal, you know? If, at his core, Parker wouldn’t've become Spider-Man if not for that fateful night, well . . . I just can’t see what everyone’s so invested in. I’m not slamming that emotional investment or love of a character, but if he’s just motivated by an unrequitable urge for vengeance I’d find him significantly less interesting.

And given how shakey Marko was depicted as at the time, if Parker had stopped the guy committing the robbery, it seems logical that he would’ve split at the first sign something had gone wrong. But I dunno. I do too much thinking about these things (e.g. in Superman Returns, I thought it was clear that the Kryptonite had a lesser effect on Superman in the end because it was diffused in plain old rock, but other folks seemed to think that the movie needed to tell us that, rather than show).

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:46:52 +0000

I’m glad to hear I’m not the only person who thought the dancing scene was funny (I suspect that like Sam Raimi, I’m a sucker for a cheap joke.) I’m also glad to hear I’m not the only person who thought the major mis-step of Spider-Man 3 was having the Sandman be the one who shot Uncle Ben. I’ve already mentally edited that out.

And I gotta say, while I totally agree with you in every aspect about Wolverine, I’d still love to see him get a rocket-powered funny car. (Oh, and I’ll tack on an extra complaint: Does he really also have to be a member of the Avengers? Don’t the Avengers have rules about “not killing”? Didn’t Hawkeye expel his own freaking wife from the team because she let a man die? Maybe they put corks on the end of his claws before he goes into battle or something.)

By: El Bastardo Magnifico

El Bastardo Magnifico — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:16:35 +0000

Andrew, one of the main reasons Peter puts on the costume in the first place is his guilt over not stopping the robber that went on to kill Uncle Ben. When it’s changed so that Ben would have probably died regardless of what Peter did you lose the guilt as well as the whole “power and responsibility” angle, two big parts of the core of the character. As far as Final Crisis goes I keep heard that the characters in Countdown will play a big part in it. I don’t know if I’ll want to read it if that’s the case.

By: clay

clay — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:37:06 +0000

I gotta say, I thought the whole Peter-dancing thing was pretty funny as well. Peter Parker is still a geek at heart, and even when he’s acting ‘evil,’ he’s still a geek.

And I thought the scene where he danced in MJ’s night club and humiliated her was effective in showing how far he had fallen. That was *truly* dickish.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:54:40 +0000

I’m probably going to catch flak, but I really thought that the retcon for Sandman really helped the film. I enjoyed how it played out, and I thought it gave Spider-Man a touch of much needed nobility in the end when he forgave Sandman. It was just a way to inject some cheap heat on Sandman and provide more to it than “there’s a bad guy. He’s robbing banks and being bad. He and Spider-Man are going to punch each other until one of them goes down.” I dunno, I guess I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. The compare/contrast between Spider-Man and Sandman just struck me as a neat thing to do (they’re both guys suffering because they made some bad choices, but the thing to realize about them is that their bad choices don’t mean they’re bad people), and it gave things a thematic backbone. A lot of the stuff that happened was telegraphed a mile away, though I didn’t mind that and because I’m not a big Spidey-fan it wasn’t anything that struck me as something I wouldn’t expect from Spider-Man. Too much of that ’90s cartoon.

And I thought Parker dancing like a tool was funny.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:50:46 +0000

Forgive me...I don't know how to make quote boxes... You know, I’ve never actually seen a movie franchise so vividly jump the shark. I saw that stupid dance and said to myself, “wow - this is the exact moment that Spider-Man movies started to suck.” Let's see...a canon love interest gets crammed into the movie (extra irony: a natural blonde playing a redhead, while a redhead plays a blonde), a massive retcon smacks the hero and his aunt in the face, and a villain that should've been made in the third movie and unleashed in the fourth...and Peter Parker indulging his inner Travolta was the worst thing that happened? The bright side is that we get this parody from X-Play. I think a fourth movie could be made...though if MJ is off in Europe doing theater, I wouldn't mind. I agree on Survivor: China. Sad fact of life: the fall seasons of the show pale in comparison to the spring editions (exceptions: Pearl Islands and Cook Islands. But for true horror, I present The Amazing Race: All-Stars. I'd go over what I hated, but it would take a while. At least Todd can be presented as a semi-decent (read: "not Jenna Morasca") winner...how the hell can anybody explain Eric & Danielle?

By: Naysayer

Naysayer — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 20:36:41 +0000

Ahhahaha, Disco Parker was awesome. Ever since, I’ve danced down the street just the same way, and the ladies just love it !!!