No New Ideas

This summer's spate of movies has really been the poster child for the old saying about no new ideas. We've had reimaginings or reboots (Star Trek), sequels (Terminator: Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), prequels (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and adaptations (Transformers, again and GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra). All of these movies did well at the box office, but some are being trashed by fans of the original sources.

While Star Trek and Terminator have seemed to have survived this fairly well, the other movies have not. In the comic book, cartoon and toy geek circles I often find myself in (since being a comic geek myself, it's relatively hard to have one without the others) fans of the X-Men comics and movies have largely ridiculed the movie. While I don't find it as bad as some say, it definitely could have been better. As for Transformers and GI Joe, those movies are so different than the source material, I honestly can't see them as anything other than pale imitations of what they once were.

All of this lead up to get to my main point: Who cares? I've seen Wolverine and Transformers and found them to be mostly entertaining with a few quibbles here and there. GI Joe, I have not and will not see until at least it is on cable, mainly due to the fact that it looks like a horrendous movie with little to no resemblance of the cartoon I grew up on. If it had more resemblance to the cartoon and was still a bad movie, I could at least watch it. That's my own personal opinion. The main thing I want to point out is that as a fan community, the geeks bitch and whine about every little thing that gets messed with. My question to them is this, does it really matter? The original source material is usually available to watch or read and nothing will ever change that. It will most likely always be there. Also, as much as it sucks that some of us have waited years to see a cool live action version of some of our favorite cartoons, Hollywood almost never gets it completely right. Why do you go through this every time? You'd think you'd be resigned to it and either go watch something that somewhat resembles your childhood favorite or not go and show Hollywood that they can't mess with our stuff unless they do it right.

Unfortunately, as GI Joe's huge box office last week shows, Hollywood will continue to mess it up and we'll keep taking it. Let it go. Enjoy the shows and books that these movies are based on and forget about it. Enjoy the new movies as they are, adaptations of something we once loved (and still love) so dearly or just stop going to them.

That's my rant. It rambled on probably more than I wanted it to, but I hope you can find something interesting in it to comment about.

Dark Reign

I've been keeping as current as I can with the Dark Reign storyline weaving it's way through Marvel Comics these days. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I've never been a Norman Osborn fan and this story is not really helping much. I will say that I'm interested in where it's headed though. I'm going to give some general thoughts about the series that Dark Reign has been a part of and hope that it's mildly coherent.

Agents of Atlas

This is an entertaining series with some long out of date characters. I enjoyed the series, but with the tie-in to Dark Reign, I just can't quite keep going on it. It's just not entertaining enough, I guess.

All New Savage She-Hulk

As interesting as the concept is, I'd rather see the Jennifer Walters version in action. Glad this is only a mini.

Amazing Spider-Man

I think this is where we really start to see Norman cracking more than anywhere else. Maybe it's because it's where the character originated and they get to delve deeper, but Norman is freaking crazier than ever here.

Avengers: The Initiative

I like this series and I want to see where they take it, but it's been kind of a headache these last few issues. I love Ramos' artwork, but could they give him a better inker. It looks like it's fuzzy all the time.

Black Panther

I've always dug T'Challa, but for some reason this story is playing out far longer than it should. The replacement female Panther never really materialized and it seems like it was a crappy marketing gimmick more than anything.

Dark Avengers

I love the concept, but up until the new Utopia storyline it hadn't really been firing for me. Now it seems to be moving somewhere. I thought this was going to be the flagship title for the whole Dark Reign concept, but it just doesn't seem to be that way.

Dark Reign: Elektra

I'm intrigued by the story, but once again it's taking too long for a payoff.

Dark Reign: Fantastic Four

Reed Richards trying to absolve his guilt over both Civil War and Secret Invasion just doesn't sit well with me. It will be interesting to see Norman storm the Baxter Building though.

Dark Reign: Hawkeye

I like the story, but I'm enjoying the character more in Deadpool.

Dark Reign: The Hood

A story involving the more private side of the gangster. Not sure where it's going, but I'm still interested to find out.

Dark Reign: Lethal Legion

Wasn't sure about this one until the last page. Now I have to keep reading to find out what happened.

Dark Reign: Mister Negative

Weird character and a weird storyline. I like Spider-Man, but his newer villains are kind of out there sometimes.

Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man

I missed out on the storyline where the Venom symbiote was passed on so it's a kick to read something more about the new host, Mac Gargan.

Dark Reign: The Young Avengers

Seriously, as much as I love the Avengers, I don't understand why the Young Avengers are still around. I don't get the appeal.

Dark Reign: Zodiac

I want to find out what's up with the new character, but what was wrong with the old Zodiac?

Dark X-Men

I'm digging Emma's new team and their look. I hope the story lives up to it.

Deadpool

I've never been a big Deadpool fan, but his recent stories here and in Thunderbolts have been great.

Incredible Hercules

The story was alright, but it was there and gone and I just don't have the interest in the book to continue it.

Invincible Iron Man

Tony Stark losing his brain power sucks. I love the Pepper Potts Iron Maiden suit. I can't wait to see where this one ends up.

Mighty Avengers

I'm sorry, but this title fell hugely after an awesome beginning. The new story has taken a while to get going. I do think it's got some great places it can still go and I hope it does.

Ms. Marvel

How is it that Carol Danvers has vanished in her own book, but over in New Avengers, she's still around? Weird.

New Avengers

Speaking of, the new Master of the Mystic Arts story was a little weird as well. I hope this is going somewhere decent.

New Avengers: The Reunion

I liked this because it was Clint and Bobbie working together again. One of the first comics I remember buying all the time was Solo Avengers. It's good to see them back together again.

Punisher

I've never been that huge a fan, but I did enjoy seeing Frank using super-weapons to take out the bad guys.

Secret Warriors

I like the twist about Hydra and SHIELD, but I could really do without Fury's new pack of superheroes. I like that he's starting up a new group of ex-SHIELD guys also.

Skrull Kill Krew

Eh. It's not really doing anything for me. It doesn't really have much to do with Dark Reign other than it's a story hold over from Secret Invasion.

Thunderbolts

I really want to find out who this Black Widow really is. Is she really Natasha? That would be cool.

War Machine

Can they please just let Rhodey have a real body instead of being some kind of Cyborg/Deahlok ripoff?

Dark Wolverine

I like Daken, but I'm not sure we need another Wolverine jumping all over the Marvel Universe.

Wolverine: Origins

And is this the only title besides New Avengers where Logan is these days. That's just weird.


OK, so that was pretty much it. Lots of stuff going on, but I'm not sure how it will all shake out. I do think Norman is going to reveal just how psychotic he is by the end of this. I hope so anyway.

Reading and Writing

I've been out of work since the school year ended and other than playing video games and messing around on the Internet, I've been reading. Mostly Hard Case Crime books. I love good crime fiction and the Hard Case books are some of the best I've read. I've also got some other books on my side table waiting for me to read, but I've already taken back some of them because they are either not what I expected (Clown Girl by Monica Drake) or too dense (House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski) to deal with right now.

Reading all of these crime books has helped give me some more ideas for a story I've been trying to work on for the better part of decade. I've decided that I actually need to start trying to write this darn thing out, especially after I talked to an old friend of mine and he remembered this idea from back when I originally conceived of it all those years ago. So, in addition to reading a bunch of books, I'm going to attempt to write my own finally. I'll probably do updates on my progress as I go along, so there should be me more blog posts on this subject.

In addition, I'm going to really try to blog more. I've got some short movie reviews I'd like to do from this past summer's slate of flicks and some posts I'd like to write about the comics I've been reading these past few months. If you actually do read this blog, I hope it will be more entertaining from here on out.

M.I.A.

I've been gone from the social aspect of the internet for quite a while now. There are two different reasons for this.

First, our financial situation got quite dire and I had to give up text messaging which cut out pretty much all of my Twitter usage. Since this is where most of my internet socializing was through, losing my text messaging was a huge deal. It was difficult for me to get on the computer at home at night as I have obligations to the wife and kids that obviously take precedence. I've met lots of great people who I thoroughly enjoyed talking with through Twitter and I hope that I'll be able to keep up those associations in the future.

The second thing that happened was that I got a semi-permanent job back in mid-March. I began working as a substitute teacher at a school for autistic kids. It was the first job I had had since November. I was always wary of working with autistic and special needs children before because I wasn't sure about what kind of training I might need and what exactly I was going to have to deal with. The first few days were an adjustment but I began to enjoy working there more every day. The kids are great and the staff, for the most part are fun to work with. The folks who run the place want me back next year on a permanent basis, which is great!

I only have two days left of work for this school year. I'll probably be off for the summer, like my wife and kids. Unfortunately, our financial situation isn't completely stable yet, but hopefully that will change. I'm going to try to get on Twitter more when I can, as well as blog more. My writing muscles need to get stretched. There's a story I've been trying to write for more than a decade now and I really would like to get it out of my head some day.

Hope there's still someone out there reading this and if you are, drop me a line.

Filmic Forays

One of my passions is film. I'm a big movie nut and love all kinds of films, as long as they're entertaining in some way. My passion for film has also led me to create 2 short films with friends.

The Third Shift

In the spring of 1999 I started working at a hotel as a part-time night auditor. That's the front desk person who runs the show in the middle of the night. In addition to that, I picked up some extra work as a part-time security person on some of the other nights. I became pretty chummy with the other night auditor and we cooked up an idea for filming a cheesy horror flick set in a hotel. We both came up with the story, he wrote it and I directed and edited it. We roped a female front desk person to play the heroine and the other security guard joined in also. I was the villain, a co-worker somehow infected by a cursed tattoo bent on killing everyone.

Once we had it all filmed, it came time to edit all the footage. I moved from New Mexico to Colorado in between and it took months for me to edit the footage as a lot of it was close to unusable. In the end, the movie came out a confusing mess of a story that made no sense. I re-edited to quicken the pace and to try to make the story make sense. It's still pretty much crap, but in the end it was a fun thing to do.

I did make a trailer of sorts out of some of the footage and it's really the best thing to come out of the whole ordeal.





In The Theaters

In 2004, I was working for DHL and I had made friends with a couple of drivers who were on my crew. We were all movie buffs and one of them was having an Oscar party at his house that year. We thought it would be fun to do a spoof of At the Movies and show it before the Oscars were to air. The guy who wrote the script and directed it, Chris, got the use of a movie theater on a Sunday morning and Jamie, the other guy, and I were filmed as we analyzed some of Chris's other movies. We all had a lot of fun and everyone had fun watching the final product. My acting hasn't gotten any better in this one, due mainly to the fact that I didn't have a lot of time to memorize my lines before we shot the thing. Be sure to wait until after the end credits for an extra bit of stupidity. Also, you can fast forward through the trailers to get to the real stuff.

25 Things About Me

I'm not sure how many of you even care to know that much about me, but here goes.

1. My wife is my absolute best friend. She gets me better than anyone else and constantly makes me laugh.

2. My kids drive me crazy but I love them all the same. I honestly can't wait for them to grow up to be teenagers because I feel I'll be able to relate to them better.

3. I'm still a kid myself. Mentally, that is. I'll be 35 this year and I still can't believe that.

4. I feel like I haven't accomplished much in my life and I'm afraid that I never will.

5. I'm a nice guy, but I can be insanely offensive when I want to be. Ask any of my friends that have known me long enough. Almost nothing offends me. And the stuff that goes on in my head is still worse than what I actually say. Sometimes.

6. I'm a huge pop culture geek. I believe it is modern folklore in a way. Think about it.

7. I love movies, but I don't understand the fascination with independent and foreign films. Just because they're independent or foreign does not make them good. I'll take a cheesy summer blockbuster over those any day. I want to be entertained, not watch someone's life fall apart in Scandinavian.

8. I love music, but I find my tastes grow every few years. When I was a teenager, all I really cared about was dance and r+b. In my 20's I added punk and alternative to that list. Recently, I've added more so called indie music to my listening. I still listen to it all, but I find that if it's something I listened to a lot, I'm less inclined to listen to it now. I'm much more interested in music I've not heard a billion times before.

9. I love TV, especially the show Lost. Lost combines so many things I love: mythology, folklore, time travel, references to history and literature, and so much more. I watch all kinds of shows and love having so many fun shows to watch now.

10. I'm also a giant comic geek. I haven't been able to afford monthly issues in a long time, but I try to keep up by buying trade paperbacks as often as I can. I've been a Marvel zombie my entire life, but I do enjoy comics from any publisher, as long as it's good. My all time favorite comic is Hellboy though. If you've been paying attention to this whole thing, you shouldn't have to ask why.

11. I love being a geek, but it's funny when I find out that I am just not as geek as some. I've never really played role playing games (just never cared for them), not really into sci-fi (Star Wars aside), and a myriad of other geek things. I'm just not geek enough sometimes.

12. My favorite author is Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Choke) and I love to read books that are similar to what he writes. I also like some crime fiction, but it depends on the individual story. But, I also like Harry Potter. Eh.

13. I love the Internet. I find it wildly fascinating and an awesome tool for information. I wish it had been around when I was a kid so that it could have made life more fun and easy.

14. I love trying out new social networks and applications on the web. The problem is, most of them suck. Twitter is by far my favorite and has kept me in contact with old friends, family and allowed me to meet a slew of new friends.

15. I love my family, but if I didn't have to talk to them I wouldn't. Besides my wife and kids I mean. I'm just not that big of a family person. Same goes for my wife's family. I like them, but most of them I wouldn't talk to if I didn't have to.

16. I just realized that I started most of those prvious entries with I love. Weird.

17. I'm a social guy and can talk to just about anyone, but I'm sometimes shy and stand-offish, especially at parties. I make friends easily, but I lose them just as easily.

18. My vocabulary runs the gamut of foul language to $10 words. That's just the way my brain works. If you don't like the way I talk, you don't have to listen.

19. I'm not a religous person, but I do believe in a higher being or beings. I don't know who or what created the universe, but someone did. I also don't believe that they guide us or even care about us really. I am open to fate, reincarnation, karma and other spiritual thoughts. I can not believe in religions that profess to know the true way of anything. No one knows, stop saying you do. Sorry, religion bothers me.

20. I love soda, especially Coca Cola. I used to really dig Mountain Dew, and I'll still drink it, but I stopped drinking it as much when I heard that something in it can cause DNA breakage. That's just crazy. Plus, Coca Cola is so awesomely good. And now I live really close to the birthplace of Coca Cola and you can get it almost everywhere. But, soda, combined with a more sedentary life in recent years has caused me to gain weight. I can't stop drinking it though.

21.I like tropical climates, or as close to them as I can get. I lived in Hawaii as a teenager for close to 4 years and I enjoyed the weather. I was born in California, but have spent a large portion of my life in desert or snowy climates. I hate deserts because they are brown and dirty and I abhor snow. I like living in Georgia. The air is moist in the summer and I know a lot of people hate humidty, but I love it.

22.I hate living in rural areas. I love the city and wish I could be in one all the time. That being said, I love to see trees and green stuff also. I want a combination of the 2 and right now, Georgia is fulfilling that.

23. I'm going to school to become a teacher. I went to school once before in the 90's as a film major, but dropped out. My wife is a teacher and it's a decent job that pays ok and you get your weekends off, plus 2 weeks at Christmas and 3 months during the summer. What other job pays you to take the summer off?

24. Eventually, I would love to open my own comic book shop. I tried a few years ago to do an online shop but I never had enough money to get it going.

25. I really hope you found this interesting. I like to think I'm an interesting guy, but I never know.

Dark Avengers Speculation

For a couple of weeks now, some of us on Twitter have been speculating about this picture and the characters that are seemingln it. This is the cover to Dark Avengers #1 and it seems to show Spider-Man in his black costume, Hawkeye, Wolverine, possibly Ms. Marvel in her old costume or Ultra Girl, and the new Iron Patriot. Since it hasn't been clear that any of these characters are what we think they are we've gone round and round with who they might really be. Rich Lovatt has a breakdown of who he thinks they might be here.

Today, Marvel posted a bunch of new Dark Reign previews here.

Included among these is the solicitation for New Avengers #50. In the bottom left corner it shows Wolverine in his current yellow and blue costume fight a Wolverine in his old brown costume. Since there is some kind of Wolverine on this new Dark Avengers team it makes sense that it would eventually come to some kind of fight, at least in the way comics make sense. Anyway, the Wolverine in the brown costume clearly has a different set of claws than our old buddy Logan has. Which leads me to believe that it is Logan's son, Daken. Check out the pic:

And here's a pic of Daken:

Looks like it's him to me, but I could be wrong. Let me know what you think.

Update: Over at Joe Quesada's My Cup of Joe blog on MySpace there is a fuller picture of the 2 Wolverines. Check it out:

For some reason these pics won't blow up. Here is the full size version of the above pic.