What I've Been Waiting For

I have never attended a midnight movie premiere before. It’s just not something that’s ever been on my radar. And, frankly, I was hard-pressed to think of a movie I’d want to see a midnight premiere of. It wasn’t until we were leaving the theater after watching Captain America: The First Avenger that I realized it, but Marvel’s The Avengers is that movie for me.

Seeing this movie at the midnight premiere and sharing it with my wife and kiddo is an experience I'll always appreciate. The atmosphere was unbeatable. We arrived at the theater around 8:30 and found our line. It wasn’t bad at all, and they ended up letting us into our theater right around 9pm. We were fortunate to not have to spend the next three hours on the floor, and instead were able to settle into our oversized XD theater seats where Jack read the movie prequel comics, Tracy read The Walking Dead, and I bounced between tweeting, meeting up with friends who were still waiting out in the hallway to get into their theater, and getting pwnd by the kiddo in many rounds of Zombie Dice on the iPad.

There were plenty of folks in costume, and our theater was completely packed by 10:30. When the house lights eventually dimmed, I couldn’t believe I was actually about to see an Avengers movie. And I was rewarded for my decades-long patience.

The crowd made this an event. Cheers for the first 3D trailer we got – Amazing Spider-Man – and for Prometheus. Cheers for the feature presentation’s main titles. Someone yelled, “Cleveland!” during the first on-screen scene shot here in the hometown and the place erupted.

I’m not a fan of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, which birthed the reimagined Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, but I have completely bought into it over the course of the last five movies leading up to this. And I am a huge fan of Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson. Brilliantly conceptualized, he is to the Marvel Movie Universe what Boba Fett could have been to the Star Wars Universe. Where Boba Fett was a background character whose cachet was based solely on the mystery of his presence then squandered with a pandering, sloppy origin and overexposure in the prequels, Coulson was grown organically to provide real weight to the character’s actions and importance to the story. Nothing wasted. Nothing easy.

That consistency carried over to Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark. By far the biggest star in this thing, writer-director Joss Whedon matched the tone of Jon Favreau’s first two solo Iron Man movies seamlessly. Similarly, Chris Evans was surprisingly believable as the man-out-of-time Captain America who ascends to the leadership role over the billionaire Stark and Asgardian God of Thunder by earning their respect. Thor’s entrance elicited cheers from the sold out crowd, and rightly so. It was a brilliant moment that Chris Hemsworth pulled off effortlessly.

As expected, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow really shone under the contradictory hand of Whedon, known for not only his strong female characters, but also his penchant for framing his leading women’s posteriors in shots. I would have liked more screen time for Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill, but it was great to have her on-hand in any capacity (and, again, more ass shots).

Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner was much more thoughtful than Ed Norton’s previous run at the character (and I really enjoy the underrated Norton Incredible Hulk movie). Ruffalo pulls off the tortured scientist in every way. Hawkeye is one of my all-time favorite Avengers. (See my loving look at the character's history in issue #56 of BACK ISSUE magazine.) And the glimpse of him in Thor was great, but I have to say he’s not the standout for me in The Avengers. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to pick any one character as my favorite. This is truly a super-hero ensemble movie.

There was actually only one moment – a split-second gag – in the movie I didn’t care for. It was the only time while watching the film that I was jarringly aware I was viewing a "Joss Whedon film," and the moment was completely unnecessary and didn’t serve the story.

And there was one thing that took some getting used to: The rendering of the Green Goliath. I remember a lot of press about how you would be able to really see Ruffalo’s Banner in the Hulk onscreen. And you could, in the face and upper body, almost to a fault, but it has grown on me the more I think about the movie and the representation. And this was more than balanced by the personality infused into gamma-irradiated giant. Hulk truly shines in battle. Given what was revealed in the eight-issue Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week comic book miniseries about the fate of Dr. Samuel Sterns (Mr. Blue) from the Norton movie, I really hope they pick up that thread and run with it in another solo Hulk movie.

Whedon nailed the character cameos, and Loki – Wow. Tom Hiddleston takes his performance to its scenery chewing limits, then dials it back just enough to keep you grounded. A wonderfully realized villain that builds progressively on the character we saw in Thor.

As far as the stingers go, Avengers comes packed with two of them. One at the beginning of the credits and one before the final fade out. Both are great in their own way. The first for its nod to fans of the comic books, and the second for the way it releases the tension of the previous two hours. Brilliant.

Marvel’s The Avengers is the movie 12-year-old me has waited 30 years for. This is the movie I would wait in line for. This is the movie I would sacrifice sleep to discover unspoiled on the largest screen in the area, in 3D, with my wife and 10-year-old son beside me. If I have ever been gobsmacked, it was during the two hours shortly after midnight on May 4 when I saw The Avengers for the first time. There were so many moments that made me cheer, or my jaw drop, or simply sit there with the biggest damn grin plastered across my face, it was a completely satisfying experience.

Marvel Unbound - DC and Marvel Present: Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk

A while back, I was digging around in some boxes of old stuff my parents had delivered to our house that were mostly filled with books and toys from my childhood. My old James Bond books, my original Star Wars and G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles, my football cards, a basketball program from a trip to the Richfield Coliseum to see the World B. Free-led Cleveland Cavaliers against the Philadelphia 76ers, novelizations of WarGames, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, and Star Wars were all uncovered. My Marvel Illustrated Books were also in there. I mention these in my book Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan as a sort of precursor to today’s trade paperbacks.

I had Marvel’s comic adaptations of Conan the Barbarian and Blade Runner, along with collections of Avengers, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four among the black-and-white Marvel Illustrated Books. But there was another book in the box that I somehow overlooked when I first rooted through it, and didn’t stumble upon it until a week or so back when I was looking for some other things in the basement. This other book is that same mass paperback size as the Marvel Illustrated Books, but this one was printed “In Full Color!” It’s DC and Marvel Present: Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk.

Besides 1982’s baxter-papered Marvel and DC Present: The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans in “Apokolips... Now!” single issue, this is the only other DC/Marvel crossover story I own. It reprints the last issue of the DC Special Series line, which began in 1977 and ran for 27 issues before ending with this “Fall 1981” dated book.

The single issue sized original printing of this story went for $2.50, but I shelled out an extra forty-five cents for this in book format. For some perspective, the going rate for Marvel’s monthly issues was fifty-cents at the time, although the aforementioned X-Men/Teen Titans book set me back two bucks.

The Len Wein written story finds the ever-wandering Dr. Robert Bruce Banner working odd jobs under an alias. He’s trying to get close to an experimental Gamma-Gun that the Gotham City Branch of Wayne Research is developing, believing it could spell the eradication of Banner’s rampaging alter ego, the Hulk. Similarly, the mechano-Skrull amalgam entity known as Shaper of Worlds is also after the gun because gamma radiation seems to alleviate his anguish. He sends the Joker into Wayne Research to steal the Gamma-Gun and the battles unfold from there across five “chapters” (much like the old Giant-Size Marvel books), bookended by a prologue and an epilogue.

What I remembered most about the story were specific Jose Garcia Lopez illustrated and Dick Giordano embellished panels, like the Joker offing Kenny, one of his own henchmen, with the poison-dipped thorns of a rose boutonnière for insinuating the Joker is afraid of Shaper of Worlds. There’s also the full-page shot of Hulk bear-hugging Batman, then later another full-pager of Banner and Bruce Wayne shaking hands with their shadows revealing their respective alter egos, and the giant Dough-Creature absorbing and containing the Hulk!

Touted on the cover as containing “The Blazing Battle You Never Expected to See!”, the 160 or so pages pack their fair share of action. Beyond just the headline DC and Marvel heroes and villains of the story, we get a nice cross-section of cameos from both sides of the fence. Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, Killer Moth, Two-Face, and Scarecrow show up from DC’s lineup, while Marvel offers Abomination, the Leader, Rhino, General Thunderbolt Ross, Doc Sampson, and Rick Jones.

Although DC and Marvel Present: Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk is not my typical reading choice (I’ve never been a huge fan of the publisher crossovers, either back in the day or now), I enjoyed the nostalgia uncovered in this little gem and time travelling back to the world of my 11-year-old self, if only for an hour or so.

Marvel Unbound - Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Color Series

I am a Marvel guy at my core, but since returning to the comic book hobby as an adult, I read most anything that strikes my fancy, regardless of publisher. That includes taking in some Batman stories: Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, Frank Miller’s Absolute Dark Knight, and Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween and Haunted Knight.

I’m not reading the Red Hulk books and am not a fan of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, so those Batman stories and the Fallen Son mini-series after the death of Captain America are really my only exposure to Loeb. I enjoyed what I’ve read well-enough, so I’m not sure where all the Loeb hate comes from. No writer can satisfy every reader, and I have never heard a convincing argument for the extreme dislike. It all strikes me as knee-jerk fanboy posturing.

Regardless, I figured if I enjoyed the Loeb-Sale team-up on Batman so much, I wanted to see what they’d do in the Marvel sandbox. I picked up the first-edition hardcovers of Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray cheap on eBay late last year and have finally worked my way through all three of them.

The concept here is a creative take on key moments in each titular character’s life. Not reimaging so much as fleshing out events that formerly took place off-page or providing a different point of view of what was originally presented.

I read them in the order in which they were released, which almost proved a misfire because I really didn’t care for Daredevil: Yellow. Sale’s art is a sight to behold, and every page in these six collected issues is a layered, shadowed experience. But the story really left me feeling kinda “meh.” I love Daredevil, but this was very much a Karen Page story. And I’m clearly not as good a student of that particular part of the Daredevil’s history as I needed to be in order to fully enjoy Daredevil: Yellow.

Thematically, I loved the way the series titles each played off Murdock’s father’s boxing career: “The Championship Season”, “The Measure of a Man”, “Stepping Into the Ring”, “Never Lead With Your Left”, “Against the Ropes”, and “The Final Bell”. And the covers of the original single issues reveal the evolution of Matt Murdock, with a larger-than-life Daredevil in the background, watching over his alter-ego. Beautiful work by Sale, but this was the first time a Loeb story fell short of my expectations and had problems holding my interest.

Whereas Daredevil: Yellow’s conceit was a written letter from Matt Murdock to his lost love Karen Page, Spider-Man: Blue is framed by Peter Parker tape-recording a letter to the love of his life, the Green Goblin-murdered Gwen Stacy, on Valentine’s Day.

Like with the first book, Sale’s artwork is striking. His reimaging of Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane Watson is retro sexy and perfectly stylized. But unlike Daredevil: Yellow, the characterizations Loeb unfolds quietly across these six issues is nuanced and restrained. Loeb and Sale used iconic moments in Peter’s life as touchstones for filling in perspective. We see Spider-Man saving Norman Osborn’s life, we meet Anna Watson’s niece for the first time along with Peter, and we witness the organic beginning of Peter and Gwen’s romance.

I don’t know how true to the characters of Peter and MJ they are, but I really loved the last three pages of Spider-Man: Blue. They capture a soft moment between husband and wife, yet it feels so important, even cinematic. There was a satisfying sense of closure to the book that I really felt was missing with the first one.

Whereas Daredevil: Yellow and Spider-Man: Blue are essentially love stories, Hulk: Gray explores relationships more broadly: the influence of General Ross’ dead wife on his relationship with his daughter Betty, Betty’s love for Bruce Banner, Hulk’s love for Betty, and General Ross’ hatred for Hulk.

The framing device here is Bruce turning to his old friend Doc Sampson in the present day, looking back at those crucial hours immediately after the Hulk was “born” in the gamma bomb accident. I thought Loeb took a lot of liberty (maybe too much?) retconning an encounter with Tony Stark’s Iron Man into this origin expansion, but the story was compelling from start to finish. It’s amazing how much emotion a character like the Hulk can convey.

Until I watched the DVD extras for the 2008 Incredible Hulk film, I had no idea director Louis Leterrier used Hulk: Gray as his primary influence. I don’t think knowing that or having seen the movie first really colored my reading of the Loeb-Sale book in any way, but I can now fully appreciate book and movie’s connection.

There was supposed to be a fourth title in the Loeb and Sale color series, Captain America: White, but it has only gotten as far as an issue #0 book. The prologue story was released back in September 2008, but seems to have been canceled after that. I don’t have that issue, so I can’t say what it’s about or how it would fare against the other three completed series, but it would have been nice to have the creator’s complete vision to judge as a whole.

In all, I enjoyed two-thirds of the color series. As a Daredevil fan and a fan of Loeb and Sale’s Batman collaboration, I’m glad I read Daredevil: Yellow, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. After stepping away from the series for a few months and tempering those expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed Spider-Man: Blue and Hulk: Gray, both of which presented nuanced, emotionally charged stories and gorgeous art.

Marvel Solicits - May 1984

This time around Marvel is touting a 14 issue subscription for six bucks. But the big deal is that when you order two titles at that rate you can subscribe to a third book for just $5 more!

Regardless of the deal, though, this is one weird looking Hulk. His head is frighteningly small for the body it's resting atop, and his face is kind of a caricature of itself -- looking more Cro-Magnon than gamma-irradiated. That same theme seems to be carried throughout the rest of the figure because based on the perspective of the drawing, his knuckles must drag on the ground when his arms rest at his sides. And what about his feet?! Good lord! His feet are as big as his legs are long!

This is the third subscription solicit I've featured so far that's signed by the artist (here next to Hulk's left foot). It looks like an "SEV" but I'm not certain. I'm guessing that Marvel had an intern in late 1983 who was the nephew of Jim Shooter, and he was able to convince his then-editor-in-chief uncle that he could draw. ("Listen Uncle Jim, I swear, I've been practicing! I can do this!") And in a moment of weakness, nepotism carried the day, "SEV" got his shot at the big time, and we got Baby New Year Hulk.

Giant diaper? Check.
Oversized safety pin? Check.
Year-emblazoned sash? Check.

Happy New Year!

Cat's in the Cradle

My kiddo made a cloth-bound book for my wife and me in his second grade class that he gave to us last night. The book is titled The Important Thing about My Mom and Dad. It's four pages long: title page, page about mom, page about dad, about the author page. Here's the page about me:

And yeah, that's the Hulk he drew.