Month: February 2015

A Guide to Comics: Marvel Women Part 2

/ everythingkidchris / 4 Comments

Choo Choo! Everyone on the Lady Train!

[What the hell is wrong with me…?]

Anywho, here are links to previous versions, if interested:

Marvel Men Part 1, Part 2

Marvel Women Part 1

Black Cat

  • Character Summary: Felicia Hardy; Femme Fatale and Spider-Man lust bait; Very much aware of and in control of her sexuality, Felicia has utilized certain… traits to get the jump on superheroes and supervillains alike; Originally just a well-trained thief, she eventually underwent a treatment to give her probability altering powers (a la bad luck); She also has a specially designed suit that gives her peak strength, speed and agility of a human in excellent physical condition (even though she is obviously portrayed as being in excellent physical condition; Felicia’s main weakness is her reliance on relationships, as she tends to fall head over heels FAST and doesn’t recover well from break ups (she holds grudges… like the “turn to a life of crime just to spite you” type); Unfortunately, ladies, Felicia is not really a feminist ideal, which will become apparent in the “themes” section below; She is typically very overly sexualized and though she often uses her body to get what she wants, she can equally be seen throwing it at Spider-Man because he’s a strong, mysterious male figure; In other words, she’s not a strong female character in the Captain Marvel capacity, but more in a “Sex in the CIty” capacity; To her merit, however, she does succeed in being an excellent foil to Spider-Man’s “Power and Responsibility” motto.
  • Common Themes:  Power without Responsibility; Identity and who defines it; Sexuality; Looking after one’s self first; A gray moral spectrum vs a black and white one
  • Good For: Femme Fatale lovers; fans of “Cheesecake” comic characters; People who appreciate a woman who DOES use her body as an asset; People who think Spider-Man is too uptight; People who hate Mary Jane Watson; Fetishists (leather, claws, furry suit… come on…); Catwoman fans
  • Go To Series: Any Spider-Man, really; Heroes for Hire (vol 1); Claws and Claws II; Hawkeye Vs. Deadpool; I do NOT recommend Marvel Divas if you want to take the character seriously…
  • Stand Out Stories: Amazing Spider-Man (vol 1) 194-195, 204, 226-227; Spectacular Spider-Man (vol 1) 74-76, 89, 100; The Evil that Men Do
…
Angela
  • Character Summary: Aldrif Odinsdottir; Angela was essentially born to Odin, taken by Angels, and later brought back into the main Earth realm against her will; This parallels her real world origins to an extent, wherein she was born to Spawn creator Todd Macfarlane and writer Neil Gaiman, taken by Gaiman in a series of legal battles and sold to Marvel; Angela had originally come into the world as a Spawn antagonist and now found herself as a displaced daughter of Odin; She is still very new to the Marvel Universe, but they have done some cool stuff with her, including letting her beat the tar out of Thor; Angela very much shares the Thunder God’s knack for battle and war-like persona, but takes that to a further extreme by being more stoic and reserved than her brother; She is a badass, warrior princess in every way and it’s exciting, in my opinion, to watch what she does as the Marvel Universe continues to expand
  • Common Themes: Power and Battle; Justified Bloodshed; Displacement and Confusion; Chaos vs Order
  • Good For: Red Sonja fans; Xena fans; Badass, Magical, Super-Strong, Sword-Wielding Female Character fans; Fans of Mythology and/or the Thor comics specifically; People who like Space-Opera type stories; Fantasy fans
  • Go To Series: Angela: Asgard’s Assassin; Guardians of the Galaxy (vol 3)
  • Stand Out Stories: The Trial of Jean Grey; Original Sin: Thor & Loki;

…

Continue reading →

A Guide to Comics: Marvel Men Part 2

/ everythingkidchris / 5 Comments

Been long enough, better continue the series.

I would like to clarify one thing: what I mean when I say “volume.” In comics, a new “volume” of a title begins whenever that titled is re/launched at a #1 issue. This means different titles have different amounts of volumes based on how many times they were launched as a new series. This does not mean that more volumes makes for a longer series or a better/worse character. For instance, Amazing Spider-Man is just now on volume 2 while a title like Daredevil is currently on volume 4. However, Amazing started in 1963 and Daredevil started in 1964. It just boils down to how many times the characters are restarted due to creative or editorial decisions. This is also confused with the Trade Paperback use for the term “volume,” which refers to a sequential addition in a group of collections. The confusion gets exacerbated when you realize that each volume of a title contains multiple volumes of trade paperbacks. Why they didn’t decide on a different term for the collections, who knows.

Ultimately, all you need to understand is that “volumes” in these posts refer to the specific runs. If you have specific questions about how to hunt down the stories or series, shoot me a message.

Anywho, here we go:

Marvel Men Part 1

Marvel Women Part 1

Captain America
  • Character Summary: Steve Rogers – Boy Scout with a sometimes gruff exterior; Driven and mission oriented; Tactical and Careful; A super soldier in both ability and personality; Old-fashioned, has always maintained a sort of tragic element about him, really getting across the “displaced” feeling, especially in the hands of talented writers.
  • Common Themes: The line between duty and what’s right; Freedom vs. Oppression; ‘MURICA!
  • Good For: People who like Tom Clancy books/movies; People who really liked the Cap movies, honestly; People who are looking for a healthy balance of espionage, city destroying action, and the occasional wholesome moral.
  • Go To Series: Captain America (Volumes 1, 3 and 5, imo); The Ultimates
  • Stand Out Stories: Civil War; The Hero that Was; The Secret Empire; Captain America No More; Operation Rebirth; The Death of Captain America; Man Out of Time
…
Luke Cage
  • Character Summary: Carl Lucas; Sometimes called Power Man; NYPD cop, wrongly imprisoned, volunteered for an experiment to shorten his sentence; Thanks to some racist redneck jerkwad Georgia prison guard, the experiment went haywire and granted Lucas super strength and impervious skin; He then breaks out, moves back to NY and changes his name to Luke Cage; Founding member of Heroes for Hire, Cage deals with a lot of the street-level crime with the likes of Iron Fist, Spidey-Man, and others; Due to Luke’s history dealing with gang violence, he is typically seen running against crime syndicates and cleaning the streets of larger gangs; Luke was also a member of the New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers for quite some time, and has helped the Avengers on several occasions, including fighting the X-Men during the Avengers vs X-Men crossover and aiding Captain America during the Civil War story-line
  • Common Themes: Racism (duh); Life on the Mean Streets; Tough can be nice; With Great Power come Great Bad-Guy Butt-Kicking; Don’t judge a book by its huge muscles and tiara
  • Good For: Fans of Street-Level heroes; Fans of cop shows/movies; People who like the “tough guy with a heart of gold” trope
  • Go To Series: Power Man (vol 1); Heroes for Hire (vol 1); Mighty Avengers (vol 2)
  • Stand Out Stories: Pulse 11-14; New Avengers (vol 1) Annual #1; New Avengers (vol 1) 1-5; Luke Cage: Noir

The Most Important Post I Will Ever Make

/ everythingkidchris / 1 Comment

Seriously, the world is a messed up place.

Plane crashes.

Terrorists.

Nuclear Meltdowns.

The Patriots winning the Superbowl.

Political and Economic discord in Europe.

The ongoing struggle for Equal Rights in America.

Charli XCX

This is a hard time to be alive for sure. In addition to all the above tragedies, the media makes a parade of panic and fear, igniting outrage and ignorance at every turn in an attempt to fuel the fire of public discord all in the name of ratings and advertising revenue.

We could talk for days about the problems of the world and what we could do to fix them.

Instead, here’s a completely crass, childish review of the original Muppet Movie:

Continue reading →