7 Days in May | You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Mad Max

Hulk (2003)



Continuing the Marvel re-watch, I went back to the unofficial first movie in the series. It's unofficial because most people - including Marvel - want to forget it, but I like parts of it too much to dispose of it and it fits with the rest of the series for a couple of reasons. To start, it begins with the military's trying to develop a new version of the super-soldier program. After what happens to the last of Steve Rogers' blood in Agent Carter, the military would have had to go back to the drawing board and David Banner's experiments in Hulk are a logical development of that. So, it fits thematically with First Avenger and Agent Carter.

But I've also always liked that Hulk ends with Bruce Banner in South America and that The Incredible Hulk opens with him there. You can't make the two movies flow seamlessly into each other, but if you squint hard enough you can pretend that Incredible is a sequel and not a total reboot. And like I said, there's enough about Hulk that I love that I want it to still exist in the Marvel Movie Universe. Mostly that's the Hulk's escape from the desert base and the tank and helicopter fights that follow, but I also very much love Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly's performances as Bruce and Betty. And Sam Elliott was born to play General Ross. Yes, the movie is slow as molasses in winter and the resolution to the David Banner plot is so ridiculous it hurts, but I can suffer through that to get to the good stuff.

Iron Man (2008)



Watching Iron Man right after First Avenger and Agent Carter, I was struck by how easily it also flows from those same themes. Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane are both obsessed with the legacy of Howard Stark. Howard's involvement in Operation Rebirth was one of many projects he participated in or created to improve the US military. And as the military continued its own attempts to perfect a super soldier (resulting in the Hulk), Stark and his partner - and eventually his son - pursued those same goals from other angles.

The problem is that Stane doesn't have the conscience that Howard displays in Agent Carter. And neither does Tony at first of course. That's the beauty of the movie: watching Tony develop that and become a better person. It still totally works after I don't know how many viewings and I still get choked up at the double meaning when Tony thanks Yinsen for saving him.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)



The Incredible Hulk continues these same themes only more overtly than the 2003 movie. Instead of David Banner's working to make soldiers immune to chemical warfare, General Ross is heading up a program that's explicitly trying to replicate the success of Operation Rebirth. I really like how well the Hulk and Iron Man movies pick up and build on different aspects of what was happening in WWII, even though they were made before First Avenger and Agent Carter.

Incredible is a more exciting movie than Hulk and I love how it works in characters, visual references, and musical queues from the '70s TV show. Tim Roth is a cool villain and I buy his motives for going deeper and deeper into the process that eventually turns him into the Abomination. One of my problems with the movie though is the Abomination's look. The comics version is one of my favorite character designs, so it was disappointing to lose the head fins that I've always associated with him.

More than that though, I have a problem with General Ross. Forgetting for a second that Sam Elliot was dream casting for me, Ross is just written really weird in Incredible. In the comics - and in the 2003 movie - Ross is a character I love to hate. I want him to leave Hulk alone, but I understand why he doesn't. He's scared and he's trying to protect the world from what he thinks is a dangerous monster. But in this movie, it's Ross who's clearly the monster. He doesn't want to destroy the Hulk, he wants to weaponize him. That makes Ross an unrelatable, stock villain.

I want to talk about that last scene, too. It seems weird at first that Tony Stark shows up to tell Ross about the Avenger Initiative. What does Ross have to offer SHIELD? He's lost the Hulk and the Abomination was a horrible failure. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. We see in The Avengers that Nick Fury isn't afraid to do some questionable things and work with some shady people to accomplish his goals. Maybe with Bruce Banner off the grid, Fury sees Ross as his next best option for getting a Hulk-like creature on the team. Obviously that never paid off and it's kind of embarrassing that The Incredible Hulk doesn't fit more naturally into the rest of the Marvel Movies story, but it works for me that not every avenue Fury explored on his way to The Avengers paid off.

One thing that does pay off from the end of Incredible though is Bruce's learning to control his transformations. That flows into one of my favorite moments from The Avengers.

Iron Man 2 (2010)



This gets a lot of crap for supposedly forfeiting story in favor of setting up The Avengers. I don't see it. I do think there's too much going on in Iron Man 2, but setting up The Avengers is just part of it and it's one of the more interesting parts. It gives us Black Widow, for crying out loud.

Far less interesting is the plot about Tony Stark's dying. It's a fake emergency; a stake that comes out of nowhere and is easily resolved without any real consequence. All it does is introduce some false and unnecessary tension into everyone's lives. There's plenty of drama already in the idea that the government wants to control the Iron Man armor and that Stark's best friend is under orders to take it from him. That plot also continues the themes of the whole series so far: the conflict between individuals who want to make the world a better place and the organizations that want to do that on a larger scale. With Captain America: Civil War on the horizon, I suspect that we're not done exploring that either.

From a continuity standpoint, Iron Man 2 creates some wrinkles by revealing that Stark actually turned down Nick Fury about the Avenger Initiative. He sort of changes his mind in Iron Man 2, but then Fury decides he doesn't want Stark for more than a consultant. That calls into question the final scene of The Incredible Hulk, but I think I remember an interview or something where someone suggested that Stark's conversation with General Ross happened after Iron Man 2, so Stark's acting in his consulting capacity? I don't know if that marries well with The Avengers, but I'll keep an eye on it.

One thing that Stark and Fury's conversations in Iron Man 2 do really well though is set up Iron Man 3. Fury says that he wants Iron Man, but not Stark. Stark objects, "I am Iron Man," but the certainty of that statement is called into question, especially considering Rhodey's actions. Iron Man 3 explores that question in a cool, powerful way.

Captain America (1944)



I finished the Captain America serial. It's not very good. It's not horrible, but it's certainly not any version of Captain America I recognize. The plot stretches out in dumb ways, too. Most serials have long sections of padding, but some deal with it better than others. In Captain America, whenever the story slows down, a new inventor shows up who's somehow grafted onto the villain's motivations and made a target.

And neither the villain nor Captain America are very smart about hiding their identities. When the villain realizes that Captain America is actually the District Attorney who's also been hounding him the whole time, it's not based on any new information that the villain hasn't already had since Chapter 1. The story just realizes that it's time to wrap things up, so the villain finally figures it out.

It's not much better for the villain's identity. He's so at the center of everything that's been going on that it's ridiculous no one ever suspects or at least questions him. Nor does anyone until the end when the villain has gotten so sloppy that he's just appearing to people and counting on killing the witnesses later.

One cool thing about the serial though is the character of Gail Richards. She's the DA's secretary, but she's also in on his secret and works as Captain America's partner. She's no sidekick, but a valuable ally who drives during chases, flies planes, and figures things out before Captain America does. And it's her who - once she's captured at the end and sees who the villain really is - figures out how to get that information to Captain America to save someone's life and bring the whole case to a close.

I don't recommend Captain America to fans of the character, but if you like serials in general - and especially if you like Lionel Atwill - there's enough to make this one worth watching if not exactly a classic.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)



I don't have any special fondness for the first three Mad Max movies. I only ever remember the last five minutes of Mad Max, but I think I enjoyed Road Warrior well enough. All I recall of Beyond Thunderdome is Tina Turner's saying, "He's just a raggedy man!" Which means that I went into Fury Road pretty cold, but - thanks to the reviews - with high expectations for a great action movie. And boy does it deliver.

There was a moment not quite halfway into it where I realized I was watching what would have been the grand finale in most action flicks. That's really what Fury Road is: a two-hour third act. Not that it's light on story. It has plenty of character and emotion; it just gives them to you without a lot of exposition. It's the kind of story I love where the world just exists and no one feels like they have to explain all the details. I get Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and what she's up to. And I even understand what makes Max (Tom Hardy) tick, even though he doesn't say a lot and is actually a secondary character in Furiosa's movie. Theron and Hardy are both doing awesome work and convey more in looks and actions than they do in dialogue. One critic compared Fury Road to a silent movie and that's a valid observation. If only silent movies were all this badass.

7 Days in May | Who’s strong and brave; here to save the American Way?

Hellboy (2004)



Last week, I got sidetracked from a Marvel re-watch by Red Skull's Raiders of the Lost Ark reference in Captain America: The First Avenger. This week I followed that up with more treasure-hunting Nazis in Hellboy, even though they don't really drive the plot of that movie. Since most of the action takes place in the present, the Nazis are a distant memory with only a few mad villains carrying on their schemes for personal reasons. In First Avenger, Hydra is differentiated from other Nazis too, but their style is similar and they're operating during WWII, so it feels a lot more like Nazis than Hellboy does.

I still like Hellboy, but eleven years later I'm over the initial thrill of having him brought to life on screen, which means I'm less forgiving of some of the changes the movie makes. I don't mind putting Hellboy and Liz Sherman into a romantic relationship, but I do mind Hellboy's pining over her. And while I love Jeffrey Tambor as Tom Manning - and even enjoy that the character is kind of a dick - I think his animosity towards Hellboy is overplayed. These aren't things that ruin the movie for me by any means. In fact, I used to defend them as valid choices to introduce some needed drama to the BPRD team. But a lot has happened with superhero movies in the last decade and I now think it would possible to bring Hellboy to the screen in a way that keeps more of the comics version intact. I want to see that movie.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)



Having finished my detour, I also came back and finished up First Avenger. I don't have a lot to say about it except that it's still awesome with great action, funny dialogue (especially from Tommy Lee Jones), and has a romantic subplot that I get totally invested in every time I watch it. And Chris Evans is still perfectly believable as an altruistic, no-nonsense character who isn't boring. It can be done, Man of Steel.

One of the reasons I want to rewatch the Marvel films is to keep track of the Infinity Stones, but they aren't actually mentioned in First Avenger. We'll find out later that the Tesseract has one in it - and that's foreshadowed when Red Skull touches it and it opens a hole in space at the end, just like it does in The Avengers - but so far all we know about the Tesseract is that it's a power source for Arnim Zola's weapons.

Agent Carter



Rewatching The First Avenger also got me excited to go back and finish Agent Carter. We started it as a family for a few weeks when it started, but got distracted, probably by catching up on Parks and Rec. That happens a lot in our house.

Agent Carter is awesome. It picks up right after the events of First Avenger with Peggy Carter's still grieving over Steve Rogers while also trying to prove her worth in the postwar SSR. Howard Stark is back in the private sector and the SSR is no longer a military operation. It's totally G-Man, with the emphasis on "man." Superspy Carter is now serving coffee and taking lunch orders, because that's all that the men in charge trust her to do. So when some of Howard  Stark's most horrifying inventions begin turning up on the black market and Stark is investigated for treason, Carter relieves her frustration by launching her own investigation to prove Stark's innocence.

It's a great spy story with lots of connections to the Marvel movies, but it's also much more than that. It comments on the way women were perceived in the mid-20th century and challenges perceptions that may still be holding on from that era. That's a major undercurrent of the story, but the series isn't strident about the way it communicates its ideas. Everything is done through plot and some really excellent characters, including the men. In the first episodes, the men of the SSR appear to be stereotypical and flat. Most of them are chauvinists, except for a handful who seem to respect Carter and her abilities. But as the eight episodes progress, the series reveals more and I came to admire some of the men I hated at the beginning. And some who appeared open-minded and heroic at first are proven to be far more complicated. None of the characters are lazily written; everyone has been carefully considered. Cannot wait for Season Two.

Captain America (1944)



I also got curious about the 1944 serial adventures of Captain America. I'm a little less than halfway through the 15 chapters, but so far I'm disappointed. That's mostly because of how little the serial cares about the character it's based on. Instead of super soldier Steve Rogers, Captain America is a generic vigilante, the alter-ego of District Attorney Grant Gardner, who puts on the costume to fight crime in a way he can't legally in his day job. Cap doesn't even carry a shield.

The villain is generic too if you're familiar with serials or other stories from that time period. He's played by Lionel Atwill, so that's cool, but his motivations and methods are standard. He's irritated about being underappreciated by his peers, so he takes revenge by murdering them and stealing their inventions. One thing is different though. Unlike most serials, the villain's identity is known right from the first chapter. That may be to give Atwill more screen time, which is nice because I like him, but it also robs the story of one of the more fun serial tropes: a mysterious, masked mastermind who is revealed at the end to be one of the supporting characters.

Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)



Finally, unrelated to the other stuff I watched this week, I got out to see Pitch Perfect 2. I was pleasantly surprised when the first one turned out to be legitimately, truly good instead of just the amusing diversion I expected. It has some characters that I genuinely care about, the music is awesome, and I laughed out loud a lot.

I wasn't sure the sequel could repeat that. And frankly, I still wasn't sure about twenty minutes into the new one. A lot of the early jokes are lame, one of the new characters is an uncomfortable stereotype, and some of the situations seem trite. The way the team is disgraced at the beginning is a forced, obvious move so that we can watch them climb back up again. And I always like Hailee Steinfeld, but for too long her character is just a way to bring some awkwardness to the otherwise polished and comfortable group.

The movie quickly outgrows this early shakiness though. It gets funnier fast, for one thing, but it also gets more complex and interesting. In the first movie, Anna Kendrick's character wanted a career as a music producer and Pitch Perfect 2 uses that to explore the potential conflict between finding your own artistic voice and just adapting and riffing on other people's stuff. Those sound like mutually exclusive ideas, but the movie argues that they're not. It makes a subtle comparison between a capella covers and a producer's collaboration with an artist. Or any collaboration, really. Having an artistic voice doesn't mean that you have to be the only one heard in an artistic endeavor. It just means that you do need to be heard. You need to have something to say.

And it's wonderful that what could have been an easy, cash-grab sequel does in fact have something to say, too.

My Top 10 Movies of 2014

10. X-Men: Days of Future Past



I don't know if I like it more for continuing the story of the First Class cast or for rescuing the original cast from the sourness I associated them with after Last Stand. I don't think I like DoFP as much as First Class, but it's a worthy sequel when it could have been an enormous mess. That's faint praise, I know, but I really love both generations of these characters and it was great to see them all treated well. And that Quicksilver scene alone earns it a spot in my Top 10.

9. Noah



I grew up with this story and I know it very well, so I'm extremely impressed and appreciative that Darren Aronofsky was able to make me think about it in a new way. And not just because he threw in some Ents. I wrote a full review of it, but to sum up: the movie makes powerful statements and asks deep questions about the relationship between humanity and nature, the inscrutability of God, and the perils of thinking you've got him all figured out. It has flaws, to be sure, but it moved and provoked me more than any other movie last year.

8. Begin Again



Wow, Keira Knightley had a good year. This is my favorite thing she did though. It looks and smells like a romantic comedy, but it's not. For one thing, though it's funny, it's not really a comedy. For another, though it'll try to fool you a couple of times, romance between the leads isn't the point. The point is about music: both the creation and the business of it. It's only 20% about the music industry though and 80% about what music is and what it means to us. There's a beautiful scene early on - really two different interpretations of the same scene - where Knightley performs a song live and we experience it first from her point of view as the nervous, insecure musician, and then from Mark Ruffalo's point of view as a music producer in the audience. It shows in a powerful way how the same song can give different experiences to different people. There's another moment later on that nails the feeling of putting on headphones in public and letting music change your perception of the world. With such wonderful groundwork laid about what music is, the movie's then able to comment on the way it's commercialized. And it does all this with some great and likable characters, including Knightley and Ruffalo's, but not limited to them.

7. How to Train Your Dragon 2



The first How to Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite animated movies of all time. It's funny, exciting, and emotionally stirring. I had no hope at all that the sequel would top it. And it didn't. But what it did do was go in a whole new direction: an epic fantasy that opened up the world of the first film and raised the stakes. It's a more serious, less joyful film, which means that I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one, but it's just as awe-inspiring in its own way.

6. The Lego Movie



When I was on the Nerd Lunch podcast last year talking about the 75th anniversary of Batman, one of the topics that came up was our favorite Batman movies. I'll never understand how I forgot to rank The Lego Movie just behind Mask of the Phantasm. In fact, since The Lego Movie is actually a Batman/Star Wars crossover, I may have to rethink that number 2 position.

5. Maleficent



I had to see this one twice to appreciate it as much as I do. There are some serious problems with Maleficent, starting with Sharlto Copley's unbelievable character and including some awful CG with Aurora's fairy guardians. That stuff really distracted me on first viewing, but what still stood out was Angelina Jolie's performance as a woman who has been hurt to the point of deeply wanting to hurt back, but hasn't yet lost all capacity to love. It's a powerful struggle and she shows it beautifully and movingly. Meanwhile, Elle Fanning grounds the movie perfectly as the tether that holds Maleficent to... well, "humanity" may not be the right word, but you know what I mean. Anyway, my second time watching it, those are the things I focused on and I loved it.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy



I'd want to call it the Star Wars for this generation if we weren't getting a new Star Wars movie next year. And besides, it's not really the same tone as Star Wars, is it? It's much more snarky and irreverent, but it balances that out with moments of humor, wonder, and just plain coolness. Even though it shares a basic plot structure with many of the other Marvel movies, it does so in its own, joyful way.

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier



Speaking of plot, that's the reason Winter Soldier nudges ahead of Guardians of the Galaxy on this list. Winter Soldier takes some brave chances, not only by changing the status quo of the Marvel Universe, but also by not being about a bunch of people trying to get the same, all-powerful, cosmic object. Instead, it's a conspiracy thriller and a dang good one. I also love Anthony Mackie and that no one tried to force Cap and Black Widow into a romantic relationship. Boys and girls can be friends! Who knew?

2. Godzilla



I had this at number one for quite a while. It was easily the best time I had at a movie theater last year. A lot of that was manufactured by me and David though. We undertook a massive Godzillathon in the months leading up to May 16, filling in as many holes in our viewing as we had access to. We even made it to a local screening of the 1954 original. When it came time to watch the new one, we had a boys' night out (Diane had a previous commitment) at our favorite theater with the cushy lounge chairs, the Dolby Atmos, and the 30' x 70' screen. We were primed. And the movie didn't let us down. We loved the slow build to the final battle and the epic moments in that battle. When Ken Watanabe says, "Let them fight," we were screaming and whooping and we - and the rest of our audience - just got louder and more excited as the movie went on. The only thing that bumped it down to number two was Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I don't think he's bad in the movie, but he's certainly the only thing about it that I didn't find completely exciting. And that's a bit of a problem when he's the lead actor.

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes



A perfect sequel. It continues the story of the first movie, expands on it, raises the stakes, and does all that in a way that's just as emotionally powerful if not more so. Incredibly, it met and exceeded my impossibly high hopes for it. I don't have one bad thing to say about it and that's why it's Number 1.

12 Movies I Liked a Lot in 2011

20. The Lincoln Lawyer



I was in the mood for a legal drama and this is a straight thriller, but it's a very good one (a couple of plot holes notwithstanding). Matthew McConaughey is awesome in this kind of thing.

19. The Thing



I don't understand why people are confused about whether this is a remake or a prequel. It's clearly a prequel; it just hits a lot of the same beats that the John Carpenter version did. It doesn't do some things as well as Carpenter did (the monster test comes to mind), but it's still effective and the CGI monsters look better than most of Carpenter's practical effects. Also, the nerd in me loves how seamlessly the two films connect. They're really two halves of one movie.

18. Drive



The more I think about Drive, the more I like it. Even going into it knowing that it was an artsy thriller, it still took some time for the film to sink in and work on me. It's touching, horrific, tragic, and unconventionally heroic.

17. Horrible Bosses



Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudekis are all charming and likable in this, but they're upstaged by Colin Farrell and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Jennifer Aniston who are hilarious. Kevin Spacey is also good, but I've seen him play this kind of prick before, so it wasn't as surprising. The real show-stealer was Jamie Foxx. From his character's name to the way he sips his soda, he was the funniest character I've seen in a movie all year.

16. Bad Teacher



At last, a reason to like Cameron Diaz again. And it doesn't hurt that she's surrounded by some of my favorite comedic actors: Jason Segel, Phyllis Smith, Eric Stonestreet, Thomas Lennon, and (after this film) Lucy Punch and Justin Timberlake. Building a story around an unlikable character is a tricky proposition for me, but they made it work.

15. Super 8



I was a little let down by the ending, but otherwise this movie had a touching story, humor, some stereotype-breaking characters, and great performances by the kids and The World's Most Handsome Actor. It also took me back to the '80s and that's a place I always enjoy visiting.

14. Puss in Boots



I'm a little afraid to watch this again for fear it won't be as funny the second time, but I had a blast with this movie. Lots of swashbuckling and it's hilarious, especially for people who've spent much time around cats.

13. X-Men: First Class



I was very nervous about this one after they began announcing the cast and the massive number of mutant characters that are in it. I had X-Men 3 flashbacks. Surprisingly, it's a focused story with a specific point that it makes well. Awesome performances by James McAvoy and (especially) Michael Fassbender too.

12. The Three Musketeers



Not the weightiest adaptation of The Three Musketeers ever, but why should it be? Hits most of the main story beats while adding lots of steampunk and butt-kicking Milady. My only gripe (though it's a significant one) is that the Miladay/Athos relationship is changed enough to rob their story of its power. That's one of the best, most heartbreaking parts of the novel and I'm sorry it got left out. But I'm happy about the war-dirigibles.

11. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol



From a story standpoint: the best Mission: Impossible movie yet. I miss Maggie Q though.

10. Captain America: The First Avenger



Lots of pulpy awesomeness and great performances by everyone. I'm not into the costume and I'm disappointed that the script doesn't give Chris Evans time to develop convincingly into the inspirational leader that I associate with Cap, but even if he doesn't feel exactly like Captain America to me, I still like this character.

9. Thor



This, on the other hand, felt exactly like Thor to me. Chris Hemsworth was perfect and the script wonderfully balanced the Earth and Asgard settings in an impressive way. The Thor comics I've read have rarely made that work as well. Certainly Green Lantern didn't with Earth and Oa. Thor had character development that reflected the comics and Natalie Portman made me believe why Earth might compete for his allegiance. Also: Kat Dennings stole every scene she was in.

The Marvel 52, Part Five: Marvel Heroes

Sorry for the silence the last couple of days. Busy busy. I'll have to do a project update sooner or later. Kill All Monsters is coming along nicely and I've been working on a short, prose story about an old, pulp character named The Purple Scar, but I could give you some more details about both of those.

Anyway, the last twelve titles in my Marvel 52 are the big guns.

12. The Liberators by Gail Simone and Colleen Coover



The Lady Liberators were introduced way back in Avengers #83 as a team of villains (of course) to fight those poor boys of the Avengers. They made sort of a comeback in recent years though as a heroic group when She-Hulk formed an informal team of superwomen to fight the chauvinistic Red Hulk in Jeph Loeb's Hulk. Then they got together a couple of other times after that in She-Hulk and The Mighty Avengers.

I'm all about the female superheroes, so it would be awesome to have a book where they could team up regularly. Maybe have a core team of She-Hulk, Valkyrie, Black Widow, and Hellcat with other women coming on for particular missions. Since that's sort of Marvel's version of Birds of Prey, it's unoriginal, but entirely appropriate to have Gail Simone writing it. And Colleen Coover draws Marvel women (and men, for that matter) like nobody else.

11. Valkyrie by Paul Cornell and Jill Thompson

I know there's a bona fide female version of Thor, but Valkyrie's been around a lot longer and has the benefit of not being exactly a female version of Thor. She has the whole, cool Viking thing going on without just copying him. I know Paul Cornell could do awesome things with that and Jill Thompson's got a great, fantasy style that would suit very well.

10. Runaways by Brian K Vaughan and Ben Caldwell

Vaughan has said that he always wanted Runaways to be a series that other creative teams could pick up and run with; that he wanted it to be sort of his legacy at Marvel. But though other creators have done pretty well with the concept, unfortunately no one's doing anything with it now. I'd correct that and bring back the writer who started it all. Ben Caldwell has a great, manga-esque style that's perfect for books about (and targeted to) younger kids.

9. Agents of Atlas by Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk



Quite simply the most definitively awesome team book anyone's ever made in the history of comics. It was Jeff Parker's baby, so no one else can touch the writing, and though there have been a few excellent artists working with Parker on it over the years, Leonard Kirk was the first. I'd want that dream team back on it again.

8. Spider-Man by Phil Hester and Pia Guerra

Spidey is a character that I haven't been excited about since the '70s. Phil Hester could change that by bringing the same mix of high adventure and everyman troubles that he put into Firebreather. As for Pia Guerra (Y: The Last Man)... Why, oh, why isn't she drawing a monthly comic book right now?

7. The Fantastic Four by Brian Clevinger and Darwyn Cooke



Brian Clevinger's proven that he's not about to run out of wacky science stories for Atomic Robo anytime soon, so why not share some of that with everyone's favorite family of super scientists? And you know you want to see Darwyn Cooke cut loose on a series like that.

6. Pet Avengers by Evan Dorkin and Katie Cook

Evan Dorkin can write a damn good animal story. Not just a cute, funny animal story (though they are that, too), but a real story about animals you care about. I sort of want his Beasts of Burden partner Jill Thompson on this one, but I'm trying not to be completely unoriginal and Katie Cook's not only awesome, she also has a thing for Marvel and pets.

5. Young Avengers by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung



Okay, maybe I am totally unoriginal. But in my dreamworld, Heinberg would have time to write a monthly series about these characters he and Cheung made up. I loved it when they were on the book, but in other hands the characters haven't been as exciting.

4. Iron Man by James Turner and Nicola Scott

If I can't have Robert Downey Jr play Tony Stark right there in my comic, something else that could get me to buy it would be to have James Turner (Rex Libris, Warlord of Io) write it. Like all my favorite writers, Turner has an insane imagination and unrestrained abandon about letting it spill out of his head and onto the page. And he's hilarious. I'm not saying that it hasn't been this way lately, because I haven't read Iron Man in years, but in general the character needs some craziness. It should be a scifi/superspy comic and I'd love to see Nicola Scott ground something like that in reality.

3. Thor by Neil Gaiman and George O'Connor



I went back and forth about whether I'd prefer to have George O'Connor (Olympians) write and draw this one by himself. He's certainly got the ability to tell fun stories about mythological characters.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how amazing it would be to see Gaiman make Asgard as huge and epic as the Dreaming.

2. Captain America by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener

If there's something else Clevinger appears to like as much as superscience, it's WWII history. Not only could he tell some fantastic flashback stories to Cap's adventures in those days, he's also a guy who - like Brubaker - can let that time period continue informing the personality and choices of the modern Captain America. And why not let Clevinger's Atomic Robo cohort, Scott Wegener be in charge of bringing it to life?

1. The Avengers by Paul Tobin and Cliff Chiang



Paul Tobin's already been writing the best Avengers comic around for the Marvel Adventures line, so he should get his shot at the main book with one of the best superhero artists working today.

The Drawings of Steranko

It's no secret that we love Jim Steranko around here, so I really appreciated getting an email from John Gandour who designed the Drawings of Steranko website. John pointed out several cool features on the site including a screensaver/wallpaper gallery, sections on Red Tide, and a gallery of other artists' Steranko homages. It's a cool, beautiful site to kick around on, so go visit.

Movie News: Blackbeard's daughter and Frankenstein's hottie

Blackbeard's Daughter



Penelope Cruz's role in Pirates of the Caribbean 4 has been announced as Blackbeard's daughter. Since she's also a potential love interest for Captain Jack Sparrow and this man is her dad, this should be a blast. [MTV]

A Film with Me in It



I love the premise of this comedy about an unlucky man whose friends and acquaintances keep dying from unbelievable accidents that clearly look like he murdered them. Check out the trailer and see if you don't too.

Don McKay



I'm not sure what it is about the trailer for Don McKay that makes me so interested. I like Thomas Haden Church, but he carries the same, stunned facial expression throughout the entire trailer. I also like Elisabeth Shue, but that's largely out of nostalgia for Adventures in Babysitting. Maybe I'm just in the mood for a steamy thriller about a woman manipulating her former lover into murdering someone in the deep South.

Frankenstein, Captain America, and more Johnny Depp (as a spy this time) after the break.

Movie News: Captain America, a witch-hunter, Frankenstien, and Adele

Captain America



Director Joe Johnston's cashed in some of Marvel Studios' goodwill by releasing some silly-sounding details about his vision for the Captain America movie. Most of it's just fine - casting an unknown in the lead role, setting the bulk of the story in WWII Europe, making Red Skull the main villain, etc. - but there's one bit that's pretty terrifying.

After he’s made into this super-soldier, they decide they can’t send him into combat and risk him getting killed. He’s the only one and they can’t make more. So they say, ‘You’re going to be in this USO show’ and they give him a flag suit.

Really. The US government creates the ultimate super-soldier, so instead of putting him into battle they have him doing USO shows? Johnston goes on to say that Cap goes AWOL from the USO in order to fight and "covers up the suit," but then realizes it's a symbol for the troops and allows him to become a leader. He covers up the suit? He can't just take it off?

I realize that I've now become that guy who hates on a movie that he hasn't yet seen, but nothing about this USO idea sounds any damn good. Still, there's a long way to go before the film's made and plenty of time to trash the idea. And who knows? Maybe they can pull off a singing, dancing Captain America better than I think they can.

Still... scary.

Season of the Witch



Speaking of scary, I kind of like this trailer for Nicholas Cage's Season of the Witch. It starts off looking like a horror movie, but turns into something more like a supernatural adventure. It's Nicholas Cage playing a knight, so it could be Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves meets Van Helsing, but I'm hoping it can be more like Brotherhood of the Wolf.

I, Frankenstein



Kevin Grevioux's Frankenstein movie has been greenlit. Back when it was first announced they were calling it an action story where the modern-day Monster carries guns and fights other famous monsters like vampires, werewolves, mummies, goblins, and ghosts. Grevioux is the creator of Underworld and the director for I, Frankenstein is the same guy who directed Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, so if you like those movies - which I do - this one sounds promising too.

Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adele Blanc-Sec: Second Trailer



Now with mummies!