KingOfRulers

Non-Spoiler Review:

Overall, I thought Dr. Strange was decent.

In my opinion, Cumberbatch plays a fantastic Dr. Strange. I went in with no trepidation concerning that casting. I love how they stuck to the original story for his origin. I was mainly concerned about the presentation and representation of magic. Visually, it actually ended up being better than I expected. I feared that it would be all Nolan-esque/Inception style effects, which was not the case.

The Mads Mikkelson villain was the worst part of the movie. Unfortunately, it's a pretty noticeable blemish. He was as boring and generic a villain as you could imagine, complete with boring and generic goons. This seems to be an ongoing problem for Marvel movies; Malekith, Ronan, Baron Zemo, Ultron, Yellowjacket, and now Kaecilius. All completely flat, one-dimensional, cookie cutter villains, that I'm not compelled to care anything about.

My other two gripes of note are :

1) There was way too much combat. This was a beat em' up movie that made me dismiss combat as anything meaningful, as it was nearly constant. I would have preferred a small amount of meaningful combat.

2) Lack of anything thought provoking concerning the occult or mysticism. I have no personal interest in the occult as an area of study or belief, but I do when it comes to Dr. Strange. I've not read a single book on the occult anytime in my life, but would love to have watched 45 minutes or so of learning and occult study as Strange learns the mystic arts. That would have been a great build up and opportunity for foreshadowing. Well, there was none of that. Just a short, generic "learning curve" (t'was barely even a learning curve) was presented.

At the end of the day, Dr. Strange is worth watching, but probably not good enough for me to buy on Blu-Ray and watch again. I'd give Dr. Strange, a 3 out of 5.

We've added:

Gerry Conway

Alex Saviuk

Casey Jones

Clayton Crain

Three recent illustrations:

Nice videos you're posting!

Tampa Bay Comic Con will be July 28-30, 2017 at the Tampa Convention Center right in downtown Tampa! www.tampabaycomiccon.com

10' x 10' corner booths are only $575 (plus Paypal fee)! You can apply to be an exhibitor here (booths are already about 55% sold out): http://tampabaycomiccon.com/exhibitors/

We will have a hotel block with discounted rates available on our website soon, in the "Hotel/Travel" section. http://tampabaycomiccon.com/hoteltravel/

"Like" us on Facebook to see guest announcements as they happen! https://www.facebook.com/tampabaycomiccon/

The fourth annual Indiana Comic Con will be April 14-16, 2017 at the Indiana Convention Center right in downtown Indianapolis! www.indianacomiccon.com

10' x 10' corner booths are only $475 (plus Paypal fee)! For the attendance, this is one of the best booth rates out there. You can apply to be an exhibitor here: http://indianacomiccon.com/exhibitors/

Hotel rates are also reasonable. Be sure to check out the "Hotel/Travel" section of our website to reserve your room in the Indiana Comic Con group block for a discounted price.

http://indianacomiccon.com/hoteltravel/

"Like" us on Facebook to see guest announcements as they happen! https://www.facebook.com/IndianaComicCon/

Guest announcements so far:

Gerhard

Alex Maleev

Alex Nino

Arthur Suydam

Excellent!

Drew this today.

Thank you! I drew it in pencil and then did all of the coloring on the computer. However, I'm reasonably decent with greytone copic markers and enjoy using them frequently. I just didn't use them this time.

Thank you sir!

Drew this today based on my of my favorite war covers:

THE SILENT GUN

8.5

I enjoyed episode #1!

NON-SPOILER REVIEW:

I finished watching season 1 of Luke Cage last night. While I enjoyed it, I did not enjoy it nearly as much as Jessica Jones or Daredevil. I'd give Jessica Jones and Daredevil a 5 out of 5 (enjoyed Jessica Jones a bit more than Daredevil though), while Luke Cage is a 3 out of 5.

I love the overall atmosphere of the show. I was hoping for a Blaxploitation feel, and for me, that feeling did come across. The fantastic 1970's style soundtrack, more than anything else, produced that genre taste. As with Jessica Jones and Daredevil, I love seeing the streets in detail and the interactions with "normal" people of the Harlem neighborhood.

Overall, I thought the acting was decent. The fight scenes on the other hand were not so great (especially when compared to Daredevil). My gripes would come into play when looking at the show's individual details. The biggest one is with Luke Cage. I feel as though Mike Colter's portrayal of Luke Cage is bland, mild-mannered, white bread and noticeably well-spoken. His dialogue was written with the aforementioned traits, so it wasn't all Colter's doing. For me, Luke Cage is supposed to be abrasive, out-spoken, temperamental and uneducated. That's the character's appeal; he's a vigilante like Batman with a personality like Dirty Harry. This portrayal of Luke Cage just doesn't hit the spot for me. He didn't say "Honky" or "Jive turkey" once.

"Cottonmouth" was as generic a villain as you can get.

Misty Knight has become my most hated character in the Marvel cinematic and television universe. I love to hate her because her level of horribleness is palpable. If their goal was to include a stereotypical, buffoon cop that believes the world should bow to them, they accomplished that goal with flying colors here. While Misty Knight took the gold for biggest loser, the show actually portrayed police in an overall negative light, which I thought was interesting (and enjoyed).

I love the continued appearances of the Night Nurse in the Netflix series'. She is probably my favorite character on Luke Cage. I also love the gangster, Turk. He's awesome. Bobby Fischer is another good character. He said a couple really funny lines.

While the casting and writing of the individual character Luke Cage did not impress me, that won't stop me from watching season 2 of the show. I enjoyed season 1, and can't wait for it to continue!

I thought Suicide Squad was terrible. It was a cringeworthy movie. I'd give it the same score that I gave Batman v Superman; a 3 out of 10.

A few drawings I did recently:

I did this humor piece of two of our employees/friends.

I took my grandson to see it today. We thought it was great, but I'm a little irritated that they felt the need for another needless f-bomb (3rd one in 3 films- though I admit Logan's was pretty funny in FC).

 

It really is hard to teach children the 'do's, don'ts, when's and when not's' of the proper use of language anymore. Sure I "cussed" when I was a kid, but that was due to exposure to other kids and some adults. Now it's everywhere in films that Marvel knows children will be seeing.

 

Captain America- First Avenger had no major profanity that I recall because f-bombs would not have sounded right in this period piece. Well you know what Marvel? If none of your films had any profanity in them, I doubt anyone would complain saying, "There just weren't enough F*cks and Sh*ts in this PG-13 film".

 

OVER

 

Your 13 year old or older grandchildren haven't been exposed to those words?

 

Going on eleven. Sure he's been exposed to them. We, as caregivers, want to minimize that exposure while he is at this impressionable age.

 

I've noticed some people treat other peoples children like toys in certain social gatherings. Once, during such a gathering, some of the younger folks present (mid twenties) saw our then 3 year old grandson poke one of the young ladies' boobs (not with any intent, just something a toddler does). If we were right there at the moment we would have gently stopped him. But then everyone present burst out in laughter, encouraging him to continue for at least 10-15 minutes before we noticed and put a stop to it, which had to have caused him confusion that a 3 year old would feel. They all thought it was cute and funny, which it was in an "at the moment" sort of way, but they never take into account that THEY'RE not the ones who have to raise the child responsibly. Allowing such a thing to go unchecked could cause some seriously embarrassing and uncomfortable moments when having to explain to teachers or principals or other parents.

 

How many of us know [of] people who rely solely on schools to mold their child's minds during these years, only to moan and groan to the world when said kids exhibit poor social skills during inappropriate settings?

"I don't know why he/she does this! They never learned it from me!" Chances are they never learned NOT to either.

It begins at home. Always has, and should always will.

 

So, if I get it right you have an issue with the language but don't seem to have an issue exposing your 11 year old to the violence of the movie? Can you help me understand how you separate the two and rank one being worse than the other? I'm guessing in this movies case the profanity outweighed the violence or maybe you don't have an issue with violence in movies. I am NOT judging - just asking for your opinion.

 

I ask as we have a 3 year old and he isn't allowed to see any program that has violence within it. I don't think he'll see the X-Men or any superhero movie until he is 13 or 14. He doesn't need to be exposed to that outside of the Taekwondo class he'll start in a year. That's the way that we view the two and place more weight on the violence side. Not that profanity is acceptable nor would it be in the future.

 

I'm sure all of the above just comes down to different views on parenting. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong.

 

I'll be able to read your response but won't be able to reply. I look forward to reading your reply.

 

And then today we let him watch the latest incarnation of The FF without seeing it first (I never intended on seeing it). They must have said s**t 9 times and said d*ck at least twice. For frickin' crying out loud, Marvel! These are supposed to be HEROES.

I don't read moderns- Is this language in whatever passes or passed for the FF, or any comic that Marvel knows has an adult as well as a minor fanbase?

Marvel didn't make X-Men: Apocalypse. Marvel didn't make Fantastic Four. They were not Marvel Studios productions; Marvel licensed those characters to 20th Century Fox many moons ago.

My X-Men review WITH SPOILERS:

The short review is that it's an average movie. It was all quite generic Hollywood.

There were some fantastic elements and some horrible elements. Unfortunately, I'd call the primary villain (Apocalypse) one of the horrible elements. The character design and voice were bad and the character's story was pretty flat. Just another typical Hollywood supervillian looking to end the world as we know it accompanied by four even flatter characters. If there were ever generic, throwaway characters, the four horsemen were it. They were just posing for most of the movie. It reminded me a lot of X-Men 3, where they just packed it with characters for the sake of adding characters.

On the plus side, Quicksilver was fantastic yet again! McAvoy as Xavier, was great! Fassbender was still great as Magneto, but I felt like the writing for his -script (as well as others) was not so good. The newly added Cyclops and Nightcrawler were just fine. I did not care for Sophie Turner as Jean Grey though. Olivia Munn as Psylocke was perfect! Too bad her character was not given any backstory at all. Hopefully, Psylocke will be developed in the coming years. She looked awesome.

The Weapon X scene of Wolverine slashing his way to escape was spectacular! By far, it was my favorite part of the movie (followed by the Quicksilver scene). I don't think they should have had him interact with the X-Men, but outside of that, it was great.

The movie overall didn't really tell any sort of interesting story. It was just another super CGI heavy, superhero movie for the most part. I give it a very average, 5 out of 10.

An Elektra I did today.

Here's my recent works of fun!

I don't go to the movies often, but I'd say that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is one of the worst movies I've seen in quite a while. It was a pretty painful viewing experience. I did not see the most recent Fantastic Four movie, but I imagine that it's something like Batman v Superman.

The movie tried so hard to be incredibly dramatic and tear jerking, but fell completely flat. It was embarassing. It seemed like it was trying so hard but nobody in the audience was buying it. The movie insisted upon its own importance scene after scene, trying to up the drama further and further with grossly overused slow-motion, copious amounts of blueish-grey filters, Jim Lee poses and furrowed brows. This movie did not tell a story to let the viewer become naturally invested in the characters. It was a hard drama sell from start to finish. There was barely a story told. The characters had no personality of their own. In fact, apart from Lex Luthor, they all had the same personality which was: serious. And the Lex Luthor exception seemed like a shameless copy of Heath Ledger's version of the Joker. I loved that version of the Joker, but unfortunately this Lex Luthor was horribly annoying and overacted, in my eyes.

The fight scenes were nothing special at all, whether martial arts with Batman fighting the Russians or the superpowered dual between Batman and Superman. It was all pretty poor, in my opinion. The fighting scenes of the Marvel films and Daredevil put these to shame.

The fight against Doomsday was as generic and formulaic Hollywood as it gets. Emanating electricity, Superman's laser eyes against Doomsday's laser whatevers, getting punched into buildings etc. Talk about cookie cutter. Doomsday himself was such a generic monster too; basically he was a cave troll from Lord of the Rings.

I could go on, but won't. I give this movie a 3 out of 10.

Spoiler-free review:

I just finished Daredevil season 2! Overall, I thought it was fantastic! The addition of Elektra and Punisher was great.

In my opinion, both characters were portrayed well. I'm so glad that Netflix and Marvel did not pull any punches with regard to the Punisher. It would have ruined the character if they did; fortunately he was truly as vicious and unforgiving as the Punisher should be.

I love that the format of season 2 had two distinct storylines (one storyline that I prefer quite a bit over the other) that Daredevil/Murdock had to tackle. Unlike most, I slightly prefer the Jessica Jones show over Daredevil (although I like the character of Daredevil far more). However, the dual storylines featured in Daredevil is something that Jessica Jones lacked and will hopefully have in its season 2.

Some of the Daredevil fight scenes were throw away. I thought it got a bit too "beat em' up". I prefer few fight scenes so that when there are fight scenes, their importance is underscored. I think that there were too many fight scenes this season against hapless goons. Also, a minor point is that I'd like to see Daredevil's armor be put to use more. He often fights goons with firearms but barely ever endures a gunshot.

The cast of characters was great, as it was in season 1. The show really heated up for me in episode 7, I think it was. I actually didn't care too much for the final episode of the season. That aside, the highlight of season 2 in my eyes, was The Punisher. I'm so glad to finally see that character represented well and even happier that this representation is in the Marvel Cinematic/TV universe and not with a complete 3rd party like Sony or Fox.

I'd give Daredevil season 2, a 4.5 out of 5.

I always love seeing books in Mylite 2s with the thick plastic boards, so then you can see the back cover without taking the book out of the mylite. I reckon plastic boards aren't archival though.

I can't understand why she'd want to keep him alive.

For most of the season, she wanted to keep him alive because she needed to collect proof of his mind control so that Hope wouldn't rot in prison. Then circumstances changed.