The Comic Book Geek

This is an exciting time for comic book fans as Disney has purchased Fox, making the characters licensed to Fox available to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This mostly concerns the characters related to the X-Men (it may also include the Fantastic Four, but that is more complicated). There are numerous ways that this could be done. They could have the existing MCU being in one universe and the Fox characters in a parallel earth, but able to crossover (such as the Flash and Supergirl on CW). They could also just have the existing X-Men movies as having occurred in the MCU, with the characters just haven't met. This may be awkward since both have used different Quicksilvers. There have been some good X-Men movies, especially the first couple with James McAvoy as Professor X. I also quite enjoyed Logan. But the truth is that the X-Men movies have some of the worst continuity of any comic book movie series. It is just a mess. I would like see them total reboot the X-Men movies ...

Marvel's The Punisher - Review

Having not been impressed with previous attempts at portraying the Punisher, I quite liked the reintroduction of the Punisher in the Daredevil series on Netflix. I was pleased to hear that the Punisher would be getting his own series. Did I enjoy the series? I'm not sure that joy is the right word. It was quite dark and at times brutal. Of course anything about the Punisher has to be brutal, but it was more than just a liberal use of violence. The Punisher immersed itself in some pretty emotional topics, much of it dealing with the trauma from military service. I'm a former army chaplain and so I'm tuned into anything to do with PTSD and other trauma. Despite being a superhero (sort of) series, there were aspects that were a bit too realistic. I didn't like everything about the first season. It was a bit rambling at times. There were a couple of sex scenes that were more gratuitous than needed to move along the story. Despite expecting the violence, there were a...

Luke Cage - Review

I loved the first two seasons of Daredevil and I thought Jessica Jones was pretty good. Luke Cage was introduced in Jessica Jones and it was natural that I would want to watch his series. I like what Marvel is doing in bringing together these characters to eventually form the Defenders. I must confess that I watched the first episode of Luke Cage and then stopped watching. Why? They seemed to work too hard to be more "mature" by including some nudity and cranking up the language. I especially struggled with the generous use of the n-word. Beyond that, I actually found the first episode rather boring. I eventually returned to the series and found the first third or so of the season to be uninteresting. Too much time was being put into giving the audience a sense of the Harlem culture. While that is not bad, after a while I was ready for some action. The series did begin to improve dramatically. There was no more nudity and the pace picked up. I didn't care much...

Ant-Man and the Wasp - Review

I have to confess that Ant-Man is one of my favourite heroes in the MCU. I was not that fond of him in the comics but he is a breath of fresh air for the MCU. The recent sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, only solidified this. What I like about Ant-Man is that he one of the few MCU heroes that I can identify with. He is a normal guy. Think about the original MCU Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk and Hawkeye. They are all professionals, people who are brilliant and talent and have it all together. Scott Lang is not that hero. Scott Lang is a hero who is thrown into extraordinary circumstances and thrives only with the strength of character. But this movie is not just Ant-Man, it is Ant-Man and the Wasp. Hope van Dyne was a major character in the first movie and I was glad that she was able to suit up in the sequel. She is more in line with the traditional MCU hero, but that only highlights the charm of Ant-Man. The relationship between the two was fun to wa...