Beta's Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2024

I’ve been away from the blogging space, and most of that is because, well, 2024 was a garbage year. I dealt with medical issues all year long, my wife and I bought a new house and a lot of things went wrong when we did, and worst of all my father passed away (well, worst of all is actually that American re-elected Biff Tannen despite him being a convicted felon, but I digress). But today is the 15 year anniversary of Beta is Dead so it would be good to post something. Plus next month is still Black Superheroes Month, so getting back into the grove of writing is necessary. 

 2024 wasn’t my favorite year for movies and I actually struggled to write a Favorite Movie list this year. Shoutout to The Bikeriders, which didn’t quite make the cut, and also Drive-Away Dolls which I had been looking for to for months and months but ended up being delayed into 2024…and it was just okay, sadly. Also Lisa Frankenstein, which I wanted to love,  but just didn't have what I needed in a film (even though the two leads were great)

My favorite movies of 2024 after the jump.

Review: Wolverine and the X-Men (Animated Series)

Wow, I only managed to write up two blogs in the entire month of April? I sincerely apologize to people who were coming here looking for content. If only there was a way I could make up for this; some theme that would ensure that several posts go live in May. Oh, I know: Welcome to X-Men Month! You may recall back in 2011 in the lead up to my review of X-Men: First Class I wrote a series of X-Men related blogs. Well now that we’re coming up on that film’s sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past so I figured why not do it again. Let’s start with a review, shall we?

If you have spent any time in the archives, especially under the comic book tag, you would likely know that I hate Wolverine. Despite being the most popular character in the X-Men franchise there is no comic book character I despise more (…well maybe The Sentry…and maybe the Red Hulk…and maybe Barry Allen). I’ve talked about this several times and even started Cyclops Lovers Against Wolverine for people like me who prefer good old Scott Summers over the terribly two-dimensional, overpowered James Howlett. So with all this in mind you’ll be unsurprised to learn that when I first heard Marvel would be releasing a cartoon entitled Wolverine and the X-Men I was anything but pleased. Airing in 2009 Wolverine and the X-Men is the third animated adaptation of the X-Men franchise (fourth if you include the Pryde of the X-Men pilot) and was the successor to X-Men: Evolution, a cartoon I absolutely despised. In fact much of the production team was the same for those two cartoons. But, even with the stink of XM:E surrounding it, my main issue stemmed from the fact that in the months leading up to its debut the show was clearly hyped as being a Wolverine centric show with the X-Men merely featured in supporting roles which found to be ludicrous.

I tried watching this show when it was first aired but didn’t have time to finish it. It ended up being canceled after one season so it pretty much disappeared from television after that. From what I’ve heard there was some sort of financing problem that caused a planned second season to not happen. Five years later there has yet to be a follow-up series and there doesn’t seem to be one in the pipeline as of this writing. [EDITOR’S NOTE: There was an X-Men anime released in 2011 produced by Madhouse as part of the Marvel Anime line that Beta has yet to see. In his defense most people have yet to see those shows; that’s the problem]

While this show has a lot of negative things attached to it technically it would be wrong of me to condemn it just on that without giving it a fair chance. So let’s give it a chance now…and then afterwards condemn it.

Full review after the jump.

Review: X-Men Battle of the Atom Part 7

I’m way behind in this review series and indeed way behind on the blog in general. With National Novel Writing Month (aka my annual month long self-imposed exile from working on the blog) coming up in just days it’s pretty upsetting how little I’ve been able to write and post the last few weeks. I’m going to try to post a few articles before Friday marathon style but we’ll see if I’ll be able to manage it.

Anyway this is the next part in the Battle of the Atom X-over that’s taken over the X-Men titles. This review is of [Non-Adjective] X-Men #6 which was written by Brian Wood with art by David López (pencils) Cam Smith with Terry Pallot on inks and Laura Martin with Matt Milla on colors. Check out the previous reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Full review after the jump.

Review: The Wolverine (Film)

My original plan was to rent X-Men Origins: Wolverine and review it before this one since that is the only X-Men movie I haven’t reviewed on this blog but unfortunately I kept putting it off and putting it off until I ended up just saying “Screw it, let’s just move on” (Which may be my real life mantra. That’s kind of depressing now that I think about it). I will say that, while I don’t want to completely spoil all my thoughts on that flick, the first Wolverine evil was easily worst X-Men movie ever made. It’s biggest problem was that far too much crap and characters were jammed in there (Seriously, why was Gambit in that movie at all?!).

This brings us to The Wolverine. It seemed like Fox was very serious about making a good Wolverine movie since initially they hired Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler) to direct. Sadly the acclaimed director dropped out when he realized he’d have to be in Japan for a year and was replaced by James Mangold who is…a pretty good director. But after watching his films 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line I wasn’t sure he was very good at doing endings (especially with 3:10 to Yuma which was a fantastic movie until the last five minutes ruined everything). Now, like with Pacific Rim, most of what I’ve heard about this film has been extremely positive with most people agreeing it was far and beyond better than the original. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while or have gone back to check out the archives you will probably be aware that Wolverine is one of my most hated characters in superhero comics. I once wrote a long blog about why. (He’s not as bad as Barry Allen though; f**k that guy). But I’m a huge Hugh Jackman fan so I’m willing to give it a chance.

Oh by the way; Fox had prior to this film announced their intention to create their own shared superhero universe following the massive success of The Avengers. In theory the shared universe would include the X-Men and the Fantastic Four with this film starting the trend (well, technically it would make the original film retroactively the trend starter, but whatever). So in addition to its own film we may need to look for clues for possible future films seeing as X-Men: Days of Future Past and the FF are both right around the corner.

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: This review contains major spoilers. On the bright side they weren't particularly good plot twists but you should still proceed with caution]

Summer Movie Preview '13

[UPDATE: Wow, I totally forgot Man of Steel. Because I am dumb. Oh I totally wrote it but I forgot to actually put it up. It’s fixed now.]

It looks like I’m doing another Summer Movie Preview, just like last year. Though I missed out on seeing a few of the films last summer, and others I simply didn’t review, the whole thing was fun and I enjoyed doing it. As I’ve said before I think that the Summer movie experience begins in May, which means I’m really cutting this close. But hey, it’s technically still April. As I said last year these are not reviews; it’s just me talking about movies coming out this summer that appeal to my nerdy side. There might be some films I missed that should go on this list but for now this will do. Notice that the Fantastic Four reboot still isn’t around. When is that happening, Fox?

Click below for more.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #3

Here we are with another issue of Avengers vs. X-Men. One unfortunate trend I’ve been noticing about this series is that apparently a lot of stuff has been happening in tie-in issues. Specifically a really cool thing happened in (I believe) Uncanny X-Men #11 where Cyclops releases “The Avenger Protocol”…which turns out to be the X-Men’s PR rep sending out an e-mail detailing the situation from their point of view, depicting the Avengers as an invading, hostile American force come to kidnap Hope Summers because she’s a mutant. Which means Cyclops is awesome because he just destroyed the Avenger’s good public image. Depressingly this doesn’t happen in the book I’m actually reading. Again, I’m not reading tie-ins because Marvel is releasing this main series, so anything necessary to get the whole plot should be here and anything else should just be there to enhance the story. My friend who’s been more proactive in checking out various tie-ins tells me that certain Avengers are now picking sides, which hasn’t happened in the main book yet (Although that may change with issue four). Should this continue and more interesting and important details come out outside of this book this miniseries will be a failure simply because it would mean I would have to spend an unreasonable amount of money a completely story.

Anyway the artwork is again done the team of John Romita, Jr. (Pencils), by Scott Hanna (Inks) and colors by Laura Martin (Colors) but this time Ed Brubaker takes the reins on the script.

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: Lots of spoilers in this review] 

Review: X-Men - Schism #5

This is it: the final issue of X-Men: Schism.  I have to say I when I first heard about this comic I was really excited about the prospect of the X-Men being put at odds with each other mainly because I thought it be neat to see the an X-Man versus X-Man scenario.  However this miniseries disappoints on every level.  Mostly.   But I’m getting a head of myself.  So far I have been underwhelmed for three issues and then in the last one I actively became kind of angry over the writing.  If you haven’t done so yet check out those reviews: Issue #1, Issue #2, Issue #3, and Issue #4.

X-Men: Schism #5 was written by Jason Aaron with art by Adam Kubert on pencils, Mark Roslan on [Digital] Inks, and Jason Kith on Colors.  X-Men: Regenesis #1 has already come out by this point and I have indeed read it.  Soon the “new” X-Men books will be coming out and the new status quo for the team will begin.  Of course, as with this comic, this new direction seems considerably less interesting now that it’s here than it did when it was announced.

Full review after the jump.

[Warning: Tons of spoilers ahead]

Review: X-Men - Schism #4

So I said the next time I would review an X-Men: Schism comic it would be Generation: Hope #10.  That was the intention but to be perfectly honest the Schism Checklist may have overestimated that book’s importance.  Basically it’s the events leading up to Idie saving the lives of the civilians at the Mutant History Museum from her point of view.  It’s supposed to, I guess, give us a look at the type of person she is (Which guess is a “Debbie Downer”) but not only do I still not really care about the character but the issue itself has none impact on the storyline as a whole.  But if you want a Panda Score it would have probably been 3 out of 5, neither good nor bad.  Let’s move on.  For reference you might want to check out parts One, Two and Three. 

This issue is again written by Jason Aaron with art from Alan Davis (Penciler), Mark Farmer (Inker), and Jason Keith (Colorist).  We’re now at the “Make or Break” portion of the comic.  So far this comic has been a combination of silly and dull but has slid by with an average score thus far.  Will it continue to disappoint or will Aaron pull out an awesome story from an otherwise mediocre one? 

Full review after the jump.

[Warning: Lots of spoilers here. You’ve been warned]

X-Men: Civil War or Whatever

This bodes ill for Cyclops

As you well know by now I am a pretty big X-Men fan and have been for the majority of my life (And wrote approximately 10,000 blogs on the subject a few months ago).   However despite this I haven’t been able to get into the X-Men comic books in a few years; not since Joss Whedon left Astonishing X-Men.   It’s partly because I just didn’t get around to picking up X-Men titles but it’s mostly because I have not been interested in the darker direction the books have been taken for the most part since House of M and especially since Messiah Complex.  But now for the first time in years Marvel Comics has come out with an X-storyline that grabbed my attention.  Called “X-Men: Schism” the books is promised to feature a dramatic split in the X-Men where leader Cyclops and his second-in-command-by-proxy Wolverine will have a violent separation due to an as of yet unknown disagreement which will lead into two different X-Books: Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine and the X-Men (Oh for Christ sakes…).  Now this isn’t original storytelling; Marvel just did near the exact same storyline on a wider scale during the aftermath of Civil War.  It’s not like I’m impressed with the storyline but the promise of being able to read an X-Men title without the dreaded Wolverine is so appealing to me that I decided to give the series a chance.  The problem is that I’m so far gone from the X-Men titles that I barely recognize anyone in the them anymore, which sucks and is pretty embarrassing.  In any event I’ll be reading and reviewing all five issues of X-Men: Schism and possibly the issues of Generation Hope that I’m told tie-in to the main story.  

However X-Men books are fairly complex and this specific crossover is the result of storylines reaching back almost ten years.   So for those of you who don’t know anything about X-Men (And frankly I’m not that much better off) I’ll give a brief run down on what lead up to Cyclops and Wolverine finally ending their relationship.

Comic book nerdiness after the jump.

Nerd Rage #3: Join C.L.A.W. Today!

Marvel finally drops the pretense about who the star of the X-Men really is

This post marks my 50^th official blog, so long as we discount an early post from January announcing I was too sick to finish my SMCS Transformers Blog on schedule. Regardless I’m pretty satisfied with writing that much under a year. My primary reason for starting this blog was to force myself to write something regularly under the hopes that it would a) help my writing in general and b) help my ability to work within a deadline. I suppose it’s helping on both fronts, though not as much I’d hope (The secondary reason involved a crush a on girl whom I’m 100% certain has never been to this blog, but let’s ignore that less than noble aspect). There haven’t been that many visitors to this site but I am thankful for what traffic I get as well as the few comments I received. Funny trivia: the most read article I’ve written is essentially Nerd Rage #1: Cassandra Cain as Batgirl but that seems to be due to the popularity of Google searches for Cassandra and people looking for pictures. Lame, but such is the nature of the beast we call the internet.

Anyway I’ve decided to celebrate the milestone of reaching fifty articles with a special comic related topic, one that I’ve alluded to and joked about many times before but haven’t specifically written about. I’m, of course, referring to the abortion of a story known as Spider-Man: One More Day the popular Marvel Comics character Wolverine, seeing how Spider-Man has never been married to my recollection so clearly I shouldn’t be annoyed by that.

Warning: The title of this article should be pretty self explanatory BUT just to make sure we’re all on the same page the following is going to be very opinionated stuff and will surely sound fanboy-like. It can’t be helped; I will attempt to back-up what I say with logical reasoning as opposed to emotional gibberish but at the end of the day I am voicing my opinion about a fictional character on the internet thus robbing me of any reasonable credibility. If you prefer snarky reviews feel free to check out others parts of the blog, because this right here is about to get dorky.

If you’ve read my blogs with any frequency you may have noticed that I greatly dislike the X-Men character Wolverine. After recently starring in his own movie four movies, three of which were disguised as ensembles, he’s more or less a household name these days. I basically understand the appeal of the guy: he’s a badass, doesn’t take crap from any one, and plays by his own rules. We’re Americans, damn it, and we like that archetype (Note: Wolverine is a portrayed as being Canadian). The problem is that he tends to be contrary with my superhero ideal and more in line with the superhero deconstruction from the 80s leading to the rise of the violent anti-hero type of the 1990s, or The Dark Age of Comics, considered by many fans to be one of the lowest creative depths in comic book history. That Wolverine is the poster child of the era of comics I despise the most is just enough to make me dislike the character, but in addition his amazing and unwavering popularity with fans has led to insane amounts of overexposure as well as power upgrades that kill my suspension of disbelief (And since I regularly read superhero comics you know that must take a lot of work to do) with a lot of this happening at the expense of my favorite X-Men character.

Even Spock hates Wolverine

We’ll get back to that in a second. Let’s fist take a look at Wolverine’s history.

Wolverine made his debut in The Incredible Hulk #180 (Properly in #181), introduced as an enemy of the Hulk but not necessarily a villain. His background at the time was not fleshed at all and aside from being a Canadian government agent with claws not much was know about him even to the writers. In fact the exact details of his past would remain a mystery for the next 27 years in real time. Fast forward a year later to 1975 and the revamp of the X-Men comic which had been brought back after several years of cancelation, the comic known as Giant-Size X-Men #1. Logan (The main alias used for those 27 plus years) was brought in as a member of the “All New, All Different” X-Men alongside fellow future long time teammates Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler. If you ever read those early issues it’s pretty clear that the writers don’t have a lot of use for him; he’s kind of just there and his now-famous conflict of personality with leader Cyclops was actually used for fleshing out Thunderbird, an Apache mutant with a chip on his shoulder who did almost nothing but argue with old “One-Eye” for the first four issues. After Thunderbird’s shocking death in the new team’s second mission Wolverine sort of fell into his spot, was written as being attracted to Cyclops’ girlfriend Jean Grey and played up his anti-authoritative stance. Ironically Chris Claremont, the writer, and Dave Cockrum, the artist, preferred Nightcrawler and Colossus to Wolverine and were planning to kill him off fairly early on, but soon Cockrum was replaced by John Byrne, who is Canadian, and he talked his way into keeping the character around long enough for him to gain enough popularity to justify not writing him out of the book. So this is what I want you to understand: Wolverine was a superfluous character that kind of blended into the background and the reason he wasn’t written off was because of his nationality. If he was French he would have been killed and we would probably only half remember the guy. But this is the real world, sickness and poverty run rampant on the world, senseless wars wage on, and Wolverine is still alive.

By this point Marvel was firmly in the Bronze Age of Comics and writers were starting to write more mature stories and distance themselves form the campy Silver Age of Comics. Wolverine’s character started to become more fleshed out as he is revealed to have a mysterious and possibly a less than altruistic past (Which included him being a samurai for some reason), as well as apparently suffering from an unstable mental state that sometimes made him slip into an unstoppable berserker rage. Now I’m not sure having a potential psycho murderer on a superhero team is the best way to run a tight ship, but hey, it was the late 70s and rules were different then I guess. Anyway Logan got more and more popular through the 80s, mirroring the industries love affair with “Bad Boys”. As comic books started spiraling into a void of gritty cynicism many fans started to view Wolverine as a new ideal for a comic hero while characters closer to, say, Superman were starting to be looked at like old relics that didn’t have a place in the modern world leading a slew of rip-off characters (See: Early Image Comics). Logan wasn’t just a 90s Anti-Hero; he was THE 90s Anti-Hero. His popularity during the Dark Age skyrocketed with only brief periods of cool downs and has managed to last to the Modern Age of Comics during which he was added to the roster of The Avengers. He currently stars in two or three ongoing solo series and is featured in the X-Men books, a few Avengers books, and Uncanny X-Force.

There’s a few reasons why I hate this guy, so let’s break this is down, shall we?

He’s an Anti-(Super)Hero

When it comes down to it Wolverine portrayal in the comics is just not what I like to read from my superheroes. If someone asks me what is my superhero ideal I’d say it has a lot to do with doing the right thing while also standing for something greater. Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man when he’s not written as being a coward who will sacrifice all personal integrity by battering with Satan-like entities married are some examples. I like anti-heroes well enough on their own, but in superhero comics I gravitate towards the more classic archetype. The closest thing to an anti-hero I tend to enjoy in superhero comics is Batman, but seeing as he works closely with the police commissioner, has a strict no killing policy (And frowns on brutal beatings as well), and is looked up to by the rest of the superhero community as an example they should follow I’d hesitate to address him as such. In Wolverine’s defense though the X-Men aren’t actually superheroes (Most of the time anyway); they’re a mutant strike force that police their own species to show good will towards humans despite the fact that they are often branded as outlaws, so really he’s not so much a superhero as he is a Mutant Dirty Harry. Even so when I’m looking to buy superhero books I walk past Spawn, I walk past The Punisher, and I walk past Wolverine and pick-up the new issue of Superboy instead.

Logan: Texas Ranger

Actually Chuck Norris is more of a team player than this guy

Unlimited Healing Factor

When his healing powers were first conceived the writers actually envisioned it to be fairly mundane. In fact one proposed origin that didn’t get made for Wolverine was that he had been seriously wounded but his mutant power didn’t work on bones so he was forced to get an unbreakable adamantium replacement skeleton just so he could walk. Even though the “can’t heal bones” aspect was never actually used in the comic his powers were still not too bad at first but as the years went by his abilities were upgraded from “accelerated healing factor” to “Deus ex machina” allowing him to basically be as unkillable as the current writer deems fit. I am currently looking at an issue of New X-Men where Logan gets all the flesh burned off his arm leaving nothing but bone which results in no long term effects other than his needed “time to heal”. I’ve seen him enter a planet’s atmosphere without a ship and being able to continue his adventure after getting “time to heal”. He’s been killed numerous times in increasingly brutal fashions but has managed to come back every time because all he needed was “time to heal”! In his review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine Robert Ebert asked the question of why the audience should care about a character that can’t be hurt and can’t be killed. That’s really my point here: Wolverine is dull. There’s no real tension when he shows up because he’s indestructible. Marvel needs to set limits to his powers and they need to force those limits on any writer who takes the character on, since technically he does have vague limitation but they are often ignored. Seeing as there’s now a strict rule in Marvel Comics that bans all characters from smoking I assume that an editorial mandate lowering the scope of Wolverine’s powers shouldn’t be impossible to do.

By the way, it’s said that Wolverine’s healing factor is actually hindered by the adamantium in his body and his younger female clone X-23 (Don’t ask) has commented that she heals much faster than him. This completely depends on who’s writing at the time and often forgotten.

He’s Freaking Everywhere

Wolverine isn’t the only culprit in comics of this crime (spider-Man and Deadpool come to mind), but he does take it to somewhat insane lengths. Logan shows up in a ton of comics per month, having his own solo titles, appearing with the X-Men, leading X-Force, and also being a member of the Avengers and somehow appearing in multiple squads. Add to the numerous guest appearances he makes and various mini-series he may be starring in he’s easily the most visible character in Marvel right now. I know this is all just fantasy and none of it is real or anything but I cannot suspend my disbelief over this. How in the blue hell can he make time for all of this? Marvel is aware of this aspect, and joke about it all the time, but don’t seem to view it as a problem. Really the idea is that Wolverine = $$$, so logically the more comics he appears in per month the more fat cash monies Marvel can rack in. From a business standpoint that may make sense but from a creative standpoint it feels shoehorned in.

Obviously Spider-Man and Wolverine are Super Best Friends

...wait, what the hell?!

For example Wolverine was part of the roster of the New Avengers in 2004. Why? Is he really Avenger material? During the first story arch Captain America is forced to attack Logan with his mighty shield to prevent him from killing one of the goons attacking them. Wolverine seemed completely confused as to why Cap wouldn’t allow him to make the kill, implying that he’s apparently never met the war hero in his life and doesn’t know how he operates (Which is of course not true, more likely he doesn’t care). Later after capturing (key word) the leader of the attackers (Black Widow II), once it’s clear that they won’t be getting any information out of her, Wolverine’s suggestion of how to treat the prisoner (key word) is, and I quote, “Just dice her and let’s get out of here”. WHAT?! Killing an opponent trying to kill you is one thing; even superheroes can’t always avoid lethal force. But killing a helpless captive in your custody without due process is murder and last time I checked murder wasn’t the Avengers’ modus operandi. My point is that it seems out of character for Logan to be a member of a team like this and is certainly out of character for key members (Captain America) to allow it. But Marvel forced him in anyway because he’s popular, not because it was logical and certainly not because it was the natural progression of his character development.

Cyclops is My Favorite X-Man

Look, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t biased against old Wolvie. I love Cyclops and a lot of comic book fans will tell you that if you love one you’ll likely dislike the other. The obvious reason is that the writers fairly early on put the two characters at odds with each other but I think that is only the background for the real issues. While Wolverine represents the new, rebellious type of hero I think Cyclops represents the character type that hero tends to rebel against: the “lame” and “outdated” superhero from the 60s. I feel a lot of times Cyclops is made to look like a punk in favor of Logan (And Storm too whom I also dislike) and has been the case for a number of years depending on the writer. Like Wolverine Cyclops’ character has been dragged through many annoying interpretations by ignorant writers but unlike Wolverine Scott Summers never seems to fully recover from it which greatly bothers me.

Warm? No. Jovial? No. Samurai? No. Badass? Yes

For example a few years ago Cyclops made what many readers and characters in-story felt was a line crossing decision: the re-formation of X-Force as a black opts assassination squad, which I always thought was a weird out-of-character move. A lot of X-Men fans rightfully said he was making a dick move. Wolverine was picked as the leader of this team, but apparently made it clear that he thought Summers was wrong for doing it and that he would only lead the team out of concern for the others that were flagged to join. That’s all well and good and chances are he was right but recently Cyclops finally agreed that he had gone too far and disbanded the team…only for Wolverine to secretly keep it going without the rest of the X-Men’s knowledge and somehow I haven’t heard the same outcry of “You’re a monster” that I heard from fans when Cyclops was calling the shots!

He’s a Dick

He sure is. He’s totally mean. What a jerk.

You big stupid head!

This is, of course, my personal opinion and you’re free to have your own. I cannot deny that I am proud member of Cyclops Lovers Against Wolverine or C.L.A.W. for short, a Pro-Cyclops organization that also happens to think Wolverine is an ass. You can become a member by…um, juts declaring yourself to be a member. It’s pretty easy to join.

Anyway I hope this rant wasn’t too painful for you. Thanks for reading my 50^th (Official) blog. Here’s to the next fifty!

Wolverine and the Avengers

So Marvel Comics is relaunching all the Avengers' books this summer to usher in the new "Heroic Age" storyline. They are releasing Avenger #1, New Avengers #1, Secret Avengers #1 and the sure to be terrible Avengers Academy #1. Nothing surprising about this of course, and I'm totally okay with it. Heck, maybe I'll even pick up a few issues.

Wait a second; something's wrong but I can't put my finger on it. Let's look at the cover of Avengers #1.

Two anti-heroes, a super villain, an obvious loner and one real superhero
What is this? The Suicide Squad?

Okay, okay, we got Thor and Iron Man and Bucky America. Cool, cool. Now let me see the cover of New Avengers #1.

No joke here. Just note that The Thing/Ben Grimm is too cool for school

Holy socks! Is Wolverine on both squads of the team? Clearly Spider-Man is as well, but Wolverine is also a member of several squads of X-Men on top of also being the star of about 164 ongoing series!

So let's streamline the whole company and have Wolverine star in every book every month. Can you smell the profits?!?

Pictured: Not a murdering psychopath. Honest

Avengers Week: Day Two

And we’re back. Today I’d like to touch on a few members f the Avengers. Now I can’t talk about all of them because there’s so many characters associated with the team that’d I’d be here all week (Also I’m no expert on the comic so I may end up talking a lot of nonsense). I’m going to keep it small, concentrating on characters that provoke a strong emotional response in me.

Avengers Week

Day Two

Captain America: Steve Rogers was a skinny little punk who was just too dang puny to enlist in the US Army during World War II, but when Uncle Sam asked for test subjects to try a new super soldier serum he jumped at the chance to serve his county. He gained no superhuman powers but rather gained peek human conditioning making him stronger, faster and more capable than the average American slobs could ever hope to be thanks to steroids. Rather than becoming a baseball player Rogers’ joins in the fight against the axis and punch Hitler in the face as Captain America.

The default leader of the team, despite being an obvious loner

Cap was not a founding Avenger but he was sort of reintroduced in the Siler Age in an early issue and kind of has retroactive founder status. He’s also the poster Avenger; when most comic fans think of this team they think Captain America. He’s usually leading them because every other Avenger is horribly incompetent in that function. Also despite his flag waving colors he’s actually not an agent of the American government though he is usually on good terms with law enforcement agents. Rather he represents the spirit of America which means he has, on occasion, beaten the crap out of government guys and wage war on the country. Though usually he’s pretty chill.

Unlike his “Ultimate Marvel Universe” counterpart who enjoys beating his friends half to death and declaring that the “A” on his forehead doesn’t stand for ‘France”.

Thor: In Norse mythology Thor was a lunk-head who really liked killing giants. In Marvel Comics he’s a superhero. I totally get it. (Marvel’s) Thor apparently was a big dumb jerk walking around Asgard like he owned the place so his father Odin banished him to Earth in the form of crippled guy (Donald Blake) to teach him some humility. Since then he’s become one of the world’s most steadfast champions, while still making time to occasionally beat up giants (Presumably he only barely tolerates Giant-Man).

A founder of the team (His evil brother Loki was the threat that brought them together) Thor is a longer member who always is ready to fight by the side of his mortal friends. A lot of fans seem to dislike Thor because, as the powerful god of thunder, he is hard to relate to and therefore not that interesting. These are the same people who also think Superman is lame. Allow me to offer a rebuttal: shut up, Thor is awesome! Jerk…

Iron Man: Another founder Tony Stark was a brilliant scientist and billionaire industrialist who was kidnapped by some foreign menace (Who that menace was depends on who America is currently fighting) during which his heart was punctured by shrapnel or somehting. Luckily, being a genius, Stark built himself a high tech suit of armor that was one part heart regulator one part communist killing machine that he must use or else he dies. He poses as his own bodyguard Iron Man (Because everyone in the Marvel universe is a gullible twit) and fights the Red Menace that threaten the forces of capitalism.

Iron Man is one of the most sinister and manipulative beloved heroes in the Marvel universe whose many acts of heroism included collaborating with the evil Kang the Conqueror to destroy the Avengers from within taking control of the superhero community and turning them into an army for America faking his death in order to avoid prosecution for his evil deeds stopped the sinister Mandarin from unionizing Stark’s employees doing something undoubtedly evil.

Uh…let’s move on.

The Scarlet Witch: Part of Cap’s Quirky Quartet Wanda Maximoff is a mutant and the daughter of X-Men villain Magneto. She spent her early appearances as a mutant terrorist with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and also pretty much doing nothing but being weak and sought after by her male teammates (Thanks for the female empowerment, Stan) and yet somehow she and her twin brother Quicksilver tricked Captain America into letting them join the Avengers during a point when he was the only current member. Over the years Wanda has become a more powerful and dynamic character but she’s hindered her ability to win me over as a fan as she at some point married a damn robot. And she knew it was a robot beforehand. Dude, really? Anyway I’d tell you what her powers are but apparently the writers like to keep going back and changing the nature and the scope of her abilities. At some point she could a) manipulate probability, b) control Chaos Magic, and c) alter reality as she saw fit.

Noted technophile and obvious loner. Don't leave alone with toaster

In the last decade writers remembered that at some point she had magic children (With her wind-up husband) that she ended up losing (becuase they weren’t real or something) so they decided to have it be the focal point of her going crazy-bananas and killing half the Avengers and depowering 90% of all Mutants. I assume this happened because modern Marvel doesn’t like empowered women either.

The Vision: AKA “That Robot Wanda Married”, the Vision is an android built by the villainous robot Ultron who in turn was built by incompetent scientist Hank Pym (Ant-Man/Giant-Man). The Vision was supposed to destroy the Avengers from within but was convinced that if he turned to the side of good then he’d get to make-out with the Scarlet Witch (So I assume, anyway). I guess he's a robot who can love. He’s one of those guys that I can’t see outside of the Avengers books, nor would I want to. He has many powers including density control and flight which makes him among the most useful teams members. He also sometimes weeps in order to show that “Even an Android Can Cry” so he’s kind of a wussy. These days he’s technically dead; killed by his crazy, reality warping ex-wife (HINT: Wanda). The current version of the Vision is actually a sentient suit of armor built by Kang the Conqueror as a gift for his less-evil teenage self (So confusing). This version of the Vision prefers making out with teenage girls.

Here's a picture of the Vision:

Meh. Close enough

Hank Pym/Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Yellow Jacket/The Wasp (For some reason): Hank Pym discovered a new type of sub-atomic particles (Dubbed “Pym Particles) that allow size change or something. He soon becomes Ant-Man, the most useless hero in the 1960s Marel Universe. Later he becomes Giant-Man, a less useless but still pretty useless identity. A founder of the team Pym is usually regarded as one of the higher ups of the team, but due to repeated instances of critical science failure (Getting stuck in giant form; creating a murderous robot and forgetting about it) and several bouts with insanity (Caused by Critical Science Failure) he’s something of joke.

Once while insane and not his normal self he hit his then-wife the Wasp which became his most well-known character trait despite it never happening again once he was cured of his crazy. Even Marvel takes jabs at that every once in a while. Frankly I think there are plenty of other lame and horrible things that Hank has done for us to make fun of, but that’s just me.

Recently Pym has donned the identity of The Wasp as the original one was recently killed. Am I the only one who finds this creepy?

Spider-Man: Yes, eventually Spider-Man joined the Avengers after several decades of being too untrustworthy and dangerous. It happened in 2004, I believe, after the Scarlet Witch killed all the other more reliable heroes and presumably Captain America and Iron Man were desperate. Bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining super powers instead of dying of radiation poisoning Peter Parker became Spider-Man in order cash in and make that mother loving money. After he accidently allowed his Uncle Ben to be murdered he wised up and became a superhero for real. He’s usually the moral center of the Marvel Universe, often speaking as the everyman. He once made a deal with the devil to keep his 80 year old Aunt May alive kind of against her wishes was definitely never ever married to Mary Jane Watson.

I’m not sure why it took so long for them to pull the trigger on letting Spidey join the team, but frankly after decades of him not being associated with them it almost felt…wrong to have him there. But even so it is nice to see my former favorite superhero except for that time he proved to be dangerously irresponsible by making deals with beings of pure evil favorite superhero on a team that’s supposed to be made up of the best Marvel has to offer.

Fun Trivia: Did you know that Spidey is a way worst wife beater than Hank Pym? One time, after learning that he was a clone of the real Peter Parker (SPOILER: That turned out to be a lie) a far more-sane-than-Pym Spider-Man “accidently” hits a PREGNANT Mary Jane so hard that she was knocked across a room, meaning he used his Spider Strength! Good grief! Luckily she and Spider-Man were never married so this probably didn’t actually happen.

Seconds before he backhands her for making a tuna melt again

Wolverine: Wait this can’t be right. Isn’t Wolverine that guy from the X-Men comic books that spends most of his free time not being a team player to the X-Men? A guy who’s superhero mantra involves the phrase “If someone attacks me why shouldn’t I brutally rip their guts out?” This must be a typo! Alas, the baffling popularity of Wolverine led to his inclusion to the Avengers during the same run where Spider-Man joined. So literally after decades of telling Spidey that he was just too much of a loose cannon to join their team they finally allow him to join but just a few hours later they also let a guy who has little problem with attacking his other team’s leader when it suits his mood (And while he was trying to sleep with his wife).

Of course Captain America makes the point of “Hey, this guy murders people. Therefore he shouldn’t be allowed to join the Avengers.” To which Iron Man counters with “Sure he can; we need guys like him on the team.” Excuse me? Guys like what? Guys who don’t really believe in the whole “Justice System” thing? Guys who think “taking orders is for chumps”? Guys who will periodically shut his communicator off so he can go ridding of on some adventure (Filled with murder) without telling anyone and when he finally comes back and is asked where he went and why his response is displaying his razor sharp claws and uttering “I go where I wanna go”?

The only team player ever to be an Avenger is here!

Well the answer is apparently “yes, guys like that” because I don’t think Cap ever argued the point again after that. So we currently live in a world where Wolverine is a regular member of the Avengers. And also on the X-Men at the same time. And also with his own solo series. And two more solo series. And a Mini-Series.

Squirrel Girl: Nope, she was never an Avenger proper (She is a member of the Great Lake Avengers though). Which is a shame, but I assume if she ever joined she would overshadow her teammates in every issue and make them all look bad. Although if they ever make a cartoon called “Squirrel Girl and the Avengers” I would be down like Charlie Brown.

Yeah right. They wish they could afford her

This weekend I will have my reaction to the Avengers: United They Stand cartoon as part of the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show. Check back, won’t you.