10 REASONS WHY THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW WAS THE GREATEST SITCOM OF ALL TIME

Posted on February 13th, 2011 by ekko

I have been laid up for a week with barely enough energy to get up and change DVDs . . . So I finally found the time to watch my boxed set of the complete Larry Sanders Show.  I’d forgotten how brilliant the show was.  I think it’s the best sticom ever.

10.  Timeless tackling of topical topics.  Like the  episode about O.J., which you can see a great clip from here.

9.  Celebrities bringing their “real life” issues out on the show.  I’m thinking mostly of Ellen Degeneris’ spot, in which she is so fed up with peoples’ speculation about her sexuality that she sleeps with Larry.  Larry, guileless as ever, thinks this means she’s straight . . . Until he finds out that “lesbians can sleep with guys?!?”  Or the one where Sean Penn talks to Larry about what a horrible actor Gary Shandling is.

8.  Larry’s agent on Extra interviews: “They never edit out the crying.  It’s the cum shot!”

7. It even had great music! The show interwove musical spots and storyline brilliantly, and spotlighted worthy performers like Warren Zevon, Shawn Colvin, The Butthole Surfers, Paul Westerberg–and many, many others.

6. David Duchovny’s willingness to play Larry’s gay crush. The show repeatedly got its big-named guests to take risks and cut loose–a testament to their talent.

5. Jon Stewart. He was young, he looked ridiculous, but his repeated role was to Larry what Joan Rivers was to Johnny Carson. Only in this one, Joan wins.

4.  “Wow!  He looks so young!”  Getting to see folks like Vince Vaughn, Jeremy Piven, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Sarah Silverman, and Bob Odenkirk back when their stars were just beginning to rise.

3. Artie. Rip Torn in his greatest role of all time, the foul-mouthed producer who always knows how to handle Larry’s neuroses.

2.  “Hey now!” Hank Kingsley.  The oblivious, foul-mouthed, egomaniac-with-an-inferiority-complex sidekick with the greatest catch phrase ever, who is always willing to go to war with someone.

1.  Gary Shandling is fearless.  The show is so clearly him, all his fears, all the things he hates, and the one he clearly hates the most: People stopping him to ask for favors every time he enters a room, exemplified in scenes/storylines like: Larry being unable to run the gauntlet from his desk to his bathroom without running into sycophants and wannabes; his girlfriend, who was in love with, dropping him for the network exec who is out to kill his show; and, to beat all, Larry’s own psychiatrist asking him to shop a script for him.

Tags: Television

NEWS ABOUT AVENGERS, WONDER WOMAN, HOWARD STERN, AND MORE!

Posted on February 13th, 2011 by ekko

Howard Stern?!  Really?!  Yes!  Hit the break!  But in the meantime, check out this amazing cover for this year’s Marvel event, “Fear Itself.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Captain America, Comic books, Fantastic 4, Filthy Muties, Movies, Television, The Avengers, Thor

THE GOLDEN GLOBES

Posted on December 17th, 2010 by ekko

The best-titled awards show in the business nominated a bunch of head-scratchers this year, didn’t they?  For best dramatic movie, there’s one that nobody will see because it’s impossible to tell what it’s about (Black Swan); the obligatory Anglophile entry, The King’s Speech, also that nobody will see; the “actor comeback” movie, The Fighter, that actually looks good but is it really the best of the year?; and then two movies that actually mattered this year: Inception and The Social Network.  Look to Inception to win.

For best “musical or comedy” film, we’ve got RED competing against a bunch of crap.  RED—which I loved—will never win because the prize will go to The Kids Are All Right or Alice in Wonderland.  But can someone please explain how Burlesque even got a nom?

And how did Un Prophet not get nominated for Best Foreign Language Film?  There’s a huge head scratcher.

It was nice to see The Walking Dead nominated for best TV Drama, but how did Dexter get in there?  Talk about running on fumes, this year’s story was outlandish even by that show’s standards and, frankly, the quick wrap up didn’t even make sense.  And nominating Hugh Laurie for best actor on House?  Was there just nobody else to nominate this year?  And speaking of running on fumes: 30 Rock?  The Office?  Come on.  And why is Glee all over the place?  That show is trite and stupid.  I do agree with Laura Linney as Best Actress for The Big C, though—she is amazing.

Of course many of my favorites didn’t get picked for anything: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Scott Pilgrim, The Regular Show, Caprica . . . But nobody likes what I like.  Except, apparently, for The Walking Dead.

Tags: Movies, Television

TOP TEN REASONS FOR COMIC BOOK FANS TO OWN A T.V. SET OR GO TO THE MOVIES IN 2010

Posted on December 15th, 2010 by ekko

TOP 10 REASONS FOR COMIC BOOK FANS TO OWN T.V.s AND GO TO THE MOVIES 2010

10. Smallville. The show was on fumes last season, but it’s picked up. It’s getting annoying, though, waiting for Darkseid. And they better bring it. Because if they don’t, it’ll be the biggest cop out since Rise of the Silver Surfer, in which you never got see Galactus. I’m still pissed about that.

9. D.C. Showcase: Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam. Toss in the other two bonus features–12 minutes shorts about The Spectre and Green Arrow, and this is a keeper. Also check out this year’s Superman/Batman DVD, Apocalypse. Pretty damn good.

8. Iron Man 2. Nowhere near as good as the first, but still pretty damn good.

7. Young Justice. All we got was an hour teaser of the series to come, but it was almost as good as the best DC cartoon ever (Teen Titans Go!). The nods to Super Friends were much appreciated by the geeks in my house.

6. RED. Not as vicious as the comic, but lots of fun.

5. Kick Ass. Kicked ass.

4. The Regular Show, Mad TV, and Robotomy. Cartoon Network’s new “prime time” lineup is impressive as hell–Mad is 15-minutes that recall everything every pubescent boy ever loved about the magazine itself: Irreverent, juvenile, and flatulent. Just like me. The Regular Show, with it’s slacker stupidity and bizarre, cell-phone time travel tribute to Bill and Ted’s, is another favorite. And Robotomy is a random, bizarre mess of fun.

3. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Finally! A Marvel cartoon that’s better than X-Men!

2. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Pure genius. The most fun I’ve had in the movies in years.

1. AMC’s The Walking Dead. Best new show on TV, and one of the greatest ever.

Honorable mentions: The Losers; Planet Hulk (DVD Animated Release).

Tags: Best of 2010, Iron Man, Movies, Superheroes, Superman, Television, The Avengers

THE INCREDIBLE SUPERHERO T.V. PROJECTS!

Posted on October 23rd, 2010 by ekko

I don’t know about you, but I think “No Ordinary Family” is pretty meh, and I have no idea when “Capes” is coming to broadcast TV.  NBC’s “Heroes” has died a prolonged, choking death.  So why is there so much talk about Marvel (especially) and D.C. (kinda) jumping into the serialized TV drama market?  The news is exciting, with superstar David E. Kelley attached to a Wonder Woman project, a Blue Beetle series in production, Chew being looked at by AMC for a regular series, and the new animated Avengers series on Disney XD—probably the best new supercartoon I’ve seen since Teen Titans Go!  And those are just the almost-guaranteed ones—last week Marvel dropped several bombshells/hints about where it’s headed.  ABC has plans to develop a live-action Hulk show and another about Cloak and Dagger, with the latter being for ABC Family(!)  The C&D comics are pretty gritty—it’s hard to imagine them as family programming.  At the same time, Jeph Loeb (head of Marvel Studios TV) staked claims for shows about:

• Luke Cage/Hero for Hire—But no Iron Fist!
• The Eternals—Based on Jack Kirby’s vision of Gods posing as humans, not the Neil Gaiman reworking.
• Agents of Atlas
• A show called “Alter Ego” featuring Jessica Jones in her private eye role,
• investigating superhumans—sounds like X-Files.
• Moon Knight
• The Red Hood: The guy with the demon-cloak from Dark Reign, but it sounds like it would focus more on Brian K. Vaughan Marvel Max series.
• Ka-Zar Goes to New York
• Punisher—pitched as a more mature cable offering.
• Four anime series, reportedly already in development, about Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men and Blade.
• Daughters of the Dragon–Misty Knight and Colleen Wing

Clearly they can’t go ahead with all of these shows, but the interesting thing will be to see whether they continue to try to interrelate the universes, the way they do with their movies.  The four anime series are definitely planned to overlap, but if they shop their characters to different networks—especially ones outside of the Disney/ABC family—I don’t see how they can tie them together.  And will there be movie/TV continuity?  Animated/live continuity?

It’s great that they’re exploring their options, but if it were up to me, we’d also be seeing plans for:

• A Justice League live-action spin-out of Smallville.
• A new Teen Titans cartoon.
• Punisher—yeah, that could definitely work well on cable.
• Luke Cage with Danny Rand, not without him.
• A “Sleeper” live action show.
• A “Sweet Tooth” TV animated movie, like the high-quality ones they did for
• Hellboy.

• Nextwave!  The best anti-hero comic ever!  Who doesn’t want to see an animated Wover-MODOK?  I smell Adult Swim!
• Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius as a kids cartoon.
• A new Legion of Super-heroes ‘toon.
• A Daredevil regular drama—I think it would work better than a film.
• A ‘Mazing Man cartoon!  Come on!

What would you all like to see on the small screen?

Tags: Comic books, Daredevil, Filthy Muties, Television

SUPERBOOBTUBE NEWS!

Posted on August 19th, 2010 by ekko

TV news–Rapid fire style!

- In 2011, G4 will be running a new Iron Man “anime” animated series, produced by anime studio MadHouse.  It will take place in Japan.

- Other upcoming Marvel anime projects discussed by Jeph Loeb at Comicon International included Wolverine, X-Men, and Blade.

- D.C./Warner Bros. Animation announced a November 9 DVD release of animated “shorts” (10-20 minute stories) featuring Superman, Captain Marvel, The Spectre, Green Arrow and Jonah Hex.

- Also from D.C. on November 9 will be the Secret Origin: The Story of D.C. Comics DVD release.  It’s a doc narrated by Ryan “Green Lantern” Reynolds about the history of the publishing company.  But it’s also produced by the publisher, so don’t expect unbiased poop.  Sounds more like promotional material in advance of the GL movie.

- And Smallville is definitely ending this season.  And it’s about time.

- The AMC official bloggers are working overtime on news about The Walking Dead.  Now, the artist of the comic, Charlie Adlard, is confirmed as a zombie extra.  I hope he plays one that dances like Michael Jackson.

- Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the new Spider-Man will be a complete reboot based on Brian Michael Bendis’ incredible Ultimate Spider-Man series for Disney XD.  Now, they’re talking Ultimate Cartoon as well, with the involvement of Eisner/Emmy winner Paul “Batman TAS” Dini (and Bendis, of course).  They’ve said there will be lots of team-ups (a la Batman: Brave and the Bold).  I don’t think there’s even the remotest possibility that this could be bad.

- One last thing: I happened to come upon the pilot episode for The Amazing Screw-On Head (a 22-minute cartoon based on the Mike Mignola/Dark Horse comic from 2002).  It’s brilliant.  Really.  It’s available on DVD and all of you should see it.  Animation for grown ups.
-I lied–one more last thing: The Avengers!

Tags: Comic books, Iron Man, Superheroes, Television

OLD NEWS CAN STILL BE GOOD NEWS

Posted on August 6th, 2010 by ekko

You may already know some of this, but it’s worth repeating if you do . . .

1.  THE DEXTER COMIC. Bill Sienkiewicz—of Moon Knight, Elektra: Assassin and Stray Toasters, and one of the best comic book artists of the last century—will be doing a web-based motion comic about the earlier years of Dexter Morgan, with voicework by series star Michael C. Hall.

2.  JOSS AVENGERS. It’s confirmed: Joss “Buffy” Whedon will direct the Avengers movie.  Boo-ya.

3.  AND SPEAKING OF VAMPIRE SLAYERS . . . Van Jensen and Dusty Higgins plan to release the sequel to their terrific indie book Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer in time for Halloween.  Hooray!

4.  NEW MARVEL SERIES. At San Diego Comi-Con, Marvel let the world know that wants no money left on the table when the Captain America movie comes out next year.  In addition to the character’s appearances in Secret Avengers and his own book, as well as Steve Rogers’ presence in Avengers, Marvel will release “Captain America  and the Korvac Saga,” “Captain America: Hail Hydra,” “Captain America: Fighting Avenger,” and “Captain America: Man Out of Time.”  That last one will be by Mark Waid, one of the best writers in comics right now, and will take place right after Cap got thawed.  Sounds like the most interesting of the bunch, although the Korvac retcon has potential.  Oh, and Jeph Loeb said Captain America: White will finally be finished.  Too bad.  If it was being released years ago, before Jeph Loeb ate the suckification fruit, I would have been excited.  They also announced “Rocket Raccoon and Groo,” which I was excited about until I realized it was really “Rocket Raccoon and Groot.”  Now, not so much.

5.  WOLVERINE BEST THERE IS. Charlie Huston, who had an impressive run on Moon Knight a few years ago, will launch another Wolverine series, but this one actually sounds interesting.  It will have nothing to do with Wolverine’s past, and will pit him against The Unkillables: a new supervillain team consisting of several esoteric Marvel villains including Madcap.  (I remember when he fought Captain America back in the 1980s, and God, was he lame.)  The main villain will be a new character, Contagion, who is not susceptible to Wolverine’s form of slice-and-dice justice.  This one definitely has potential.  The art will be by Juan Jose Ryp, who has done some projects with Warren Ellis; Robocop with Frank Miller; and (get this) a graphic novel about the Vivid Girls.

6.  BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND BOLD WII GAME. I like the TV show.  It’ll be a fighting game, like Mortal Kombat, only funny.  Playable characters will include Robin, Guy Gardner or Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, and Bat Mite!  For the Wii it’ll be a 1- or 2-player game, but there will be a 1-player DS version.

That’s all!

Tags: Comic books, Television

THE TEN BEST T.V. EPISODES OF THE PAST 20 YEARS!

Posted on June 8th, 2010 by ekko

I know making a list like this is kind of ridiculous. I mean, the ten best of the past 20 years?  And that’s the only criteria (other than the same TV show cannot be listed twice)?  How can you possibly properly narrow it down?  To these questions and any others I say, “Yes!” And if you disagree, you can drop a comment, but you’ll be wrong. Because I’m always right.

10.  It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “Sweet Dee’s Dating a Retarded Person” (2007). The one with Night Man and Day Man, and the apparently retarded rapper, that inspired a live musical performance.  This is politically incorrect TV at its best-the only show that comes close to being this wonderfully offensive was Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job.

9.  Larry Sanders, “Off Camera” (1993). In this episode, Warren Zevon visits the set and pleads with Larry not to make him perform Werewolf.  So he’s allowed to play (my absolute favorite Zevon song) The French Inhaler instead.  When he’s done, Larry is so thrilled with the performance that he requests an encore.  Werewolves, naturally.

8.  Battlestar Galactica, “33″ (2004). The BSG miniseries was good, but not greatly good, but this, the first episode of the ongoing series, was edge-of-your seat excitement all through.  The ship must “jump” every 33 minutes or be destroyed by the Cylons.  Some of the greatest TV and Movie drama is based on chase-scenes, and this entire show was one long chase.  This episode set the tone.

7.  King Of The Hill, “Bobby Goes Nuts” (2001). “That’s my purse! I don’t know you!” ‘Nuff said!

6.  The Office (UK), “Downsize” (2001). The one where Brent pretend-fires Dawn for stealing Post-its.  To quote the master himself: “Brilliant!”

5.  The Sopranos, “Pilot” (1999). The first episode of the Most Important TV Show Ever introduced each character indelibly. It also evoked the family side of the show while, in a single scene, exposed the horror and violence that would come. Of course, I’m talking about the scene where Tony beats the crap out of the poor slob who owes him money, after running him down with his car.

4.  The Simpsons, “Bart the Daredevil” (1990). From season two, this episode is inexplicably censored on the DVD release. What made it so magnificently Simpsonic was the part where Homer tries to jump the gorge, fails, and is airlifted out. His head slams the sides of the gorge on the way up, he’s put into the ambulance, the ambulance crashes, his stretcher rolls out and, of course, he falls back down the gorge. Then the stretcher falls after him and hits him in the head. This scene is cut off of the DVD, and I can’t even find it on youtube. Fox are bitches. Anyone know why they did that?

3.  Homicide: Life on the Street, “Subway” (1997). The team is called to a subway station where a guy is pinned between the platform and the train. If the train moves, he will instantly be cut in half and die. If it doesn’t move, he may die anyway. The thing that made this episode so brilliant is Vincent D’Onofrio’s portrayal of the victim as a compete and total a-hole. You want to sympathize for him, but his character is so mean to the detectives that one immediately stops asking why this happened to him. He kinda deserves it. But on the other hand, does anyone really deserve that? The ep won all kinds of Emmys and a Peabody, too.

2.  The Shield, “Pilot” (2002). The Shield has the unique distinction, in my view, of being the only TV series to last a long time that never had a single bad episode. But the first was classic. Or, I should say, the last five minutes of the first episode. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it, but suffice to say it was the standard-bearer for the series: Unpredictable, brutal violence.

1.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Once More With Feeling” (2001). If you only watch two hours of TV in your life, watch this episode and “Hush.”  The latter is a silent episode and the former, well, it is simply the greatest single hour of television ever created.  Buffy and the gang are in the throes of a demon who forces them to sing and dance, until they die.  The episode has everything that makes this show great: Brilliant one-liners, creative wordplay, humor, powerful moments that will break your heart, and acting that’s so good you believe that the devil will make you sing.  I’ve seen this episode about a dozen times, and each time it’s better than before.  Even the album is great.

RUNNER UPS:

Survivor: Borneo, “Season Finale” (2000). Because a naked, drug-dealing tax evader winning a million bucks epitomizes everything that is wrong (and right) with reality TV.

Lost, “Pilot” (2004). That opening plane crash and the horror that followed stayed with me for days. We had ever seen anything like it before on network T.V. The show gradually lost its footing and its way when it became clear that the writers knew how to start a story, but it had no middle or end.

Tags: Buffy, Television

GO AWAY!

Posted on June 5th, 2010 by ekko

• Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim has a free, new Madvillain track!  MF Dooooooooooom!  They also have a free Bonnie Prince Billy song, and they’ll have more each week.  Or you can just get it right here: Papermill.

• The NJ Underground writes about The NJ Pop Punk revival Tour, and offers a free compilation, here.

• Wow.  I never thought my kids would see the day when The Rolling Stones, ACDC, and a Marley all had albums in the Billboard top 20.

• Go here to learn about why rappers hold their guns sidewayze.

• I don’t support the vandalism, but I do support this sentiment.

• This guy says he’s a Republican for a buncha reasons that don’t even makes sense . . . I’m not saying I’m anti-Republican, but self-righteous hypocrites drive me crazy.  He says:

* I believe in freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. But prominent Republicans like Pat Robertson and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann openly ridicule the Muslim religion and attempts by the Obama administration to hire Muslims.

* I do not believe in big government; and * I believe higher taxes are part of the democratic agenda and lead to a dependence upon a large government.  But the Bush administration grew government more than any administration since FDR (he created a whole new Cabinet-level Department!), and he also raised taxes to a higher per capita rate than Bill Clinton and spent way way waaaaaaaay more money!  At the same time,  Obama has delivered the biggest tax cut since before Ronald Reagan, yet workers are worse off than ever.

* I believe government control of the healthcare industry will destroy the best healthcare in the world; and * I believe that a large standing army is the best deterrent to violence in the world today.  Yet increases in the budget of the Department of Veterans Affairs–Government-run healthcare–are always supported by Republicans (and in fact VA health care has been found by independent international review agencies to be the best run large health care system in the world).

* I believe that marriage has always been and should always be between one man and one woman.  Yet Republicans in Congress divorce at a higher rate than Democrats–and many of them get re-married.

• Is it too soon to note that Gary Coleman died of a stroke?  Get it?

• I love the idea for this post–”popscurities“….

• The Rolling Stones get the Covered in Folk treatment.

• Cover Me has wisely left Blogger before Blogger killed the site.  Update your bookmarks, and check out the terrific new look.

• Keane-My Shadow (Danny Dance remix)

Tags: Covers, Go away, MF Doom, Television

NEWS AND REVIEWS ABOUT WHAT REALLY MATTERS. SUPER-HEROES.

Posted on February 28th, 2010 by ekko

1.  CONFESSION TIME. I will not be as good a comic-book blogger anymore.  Economics require that I stop buying as many single-issue books.  Therefore, I’ll be focusing on the “trades,” paperback collections of single issues that tend to come out 3-5 months after the last issue contained in the collection.  That means I won’t be reading “Siege” until about August.  I’ll still be up on the buzz and all, but I won’t be as current with the details.  But I’m not sure that you, my readers, really care anyway.  I used to get lots of comments on comic posts, but not so much anymore.  This is more about my own love now, not yours, I guess.

2.  DEADPOOL IS GREAT THIS MONTH!  (ALL THREE OF THEM!) This May, Marvel’s Heroic Age begins–the antidote for the “Cynical Age” which began (formally) with Civil War.  Exploring the difference between a hero and a cynic is Deadpool, who hung up his mercenary status (but only in his main book—“Deadpool Team Up” and “Merc with a Mouth” seem to exist in their own continuity) and tried to join the X-Men (DP #15-18).  Needless to say, it didn’t take.  So now, he’s harassing Spider-Man, trying to learn how to be a solo hero.  Deadpool #19 was laugh-out-loud funny, and although many will complain about Hitmonkey, I thought he was perfect villain for this madcap, unpredictable series.  Daniel Way is terrific—I can’t figure out why I dislike his “Wolverine” work so much—at weaving in Deadpool’s schizophrenic internal dialog and Pool-O-Vision.  Art-wise, we got Carlo Barberi, who was also behind the Deadpool: Suicide Kings
miniseries.  Very solid stuff.

3.  UNBREAKABLE 2???? Bruce Willis let it slip recently at MTV that there might be an Unbreakable 2.  I think he was fishing for work—U2 won’t ever happen.  Don’t get me wrong, the first film is one of my all-time favorite flicks.  But it’s a little late for the sequel, and M. Knight hasn’t made a really good film in quite a while.  Or at least a really good dark film—Airbender looks like it may be good.  I remember reading an interview with M. a long time ago where he said that Unbreakable was actually a trilogy.  If so, I think he’d be better off releasing it as a comic book.  Willis is long in the tooth for the role, unless the sequel takes place many years later . . . Aw, who am I kidding.  I’d sleep outdoors to see the sequel to Unbreakable!

4.  SUPERMOVIE. David S. “Batman Begins” Goyer has, supposedly, written a script for the next Superman movie, “The Man of Steel,” modeled after John Byrne’s classic 1980s take on the character.  Words can’t express how disappointed I was with “Superman Returns.”  I mean, there’s been great Superman films (the first two Richard Donner ones), terrible ones (Richard Pryor??) but never before had there been a boring one.  DC should forget that film ever existed.  Goyer’s script is not an origin story, which is a good thing.  We’ve had too many of those on the screen, and book-wise we just got one last year from Geoff Johns and we’re getting another one next year from JMS.  Enough!  Let’s see Superman be super, already!  The rumor is this one will have both Braniac and Luthor, and Christopher Nolan may also be involved if he finishes with Batman 3 first.  But then again, this could all just be rumor.

5.  RINGS. What isn’t a rumor is that DC is going to be adding White Lantern rings to the rainbow of Green Lantern promo plastic.  I’ve got all seven so far, hanging on the staff of my wife’s statue of the Mayor from Nightmare Before Christmas.  Woo-hoo!
6.  CAPTAIN AMERINERD!  I’ve said before that I’m not impressed by director Joe Johnston’s public statements about the greatest superhero of all time, Captain America.  I’m very nervous about the film.  And now I’m reading that John “The Office” Krasinski is in the running as Steve Rogers?  Please, God, no.  Captain America is supposed to be huge.  I could break Krasinski in two with one hand tied behind my back.  He’s also supposed to be inspiring, not a squishy, loveable goofball.  John K might make a good Fabian Stankowicz, though.  (Anybody catch his clash with Deadpool this month?  Hilarious!)

7.  THE LOSING TEAM. There’s a whole bunch of trailers for The Losers floating around now.  Am I the only one who thinks it looks less interesting than The A-Team?  I might be . . .

8.  SPIDEY (AGAIN). I talk a lot about Amazing Spider-Man here because none of you ever comment on it, which makes me think you’re not reading it, and you should be.  And a good place to start is with this week’s #622, a one-and-done interlude in the “Gauntlet” series, which is bringing back and rebooting all of Spidey’s classic foes.  This issue is about Morbius The Living Vampire, who is an old but not exactly “classic.”  The art chores are picked up by Joe Quinones (there are rotating creative staffs on the Spidey book) and the writing is by Fred Van Lente, who is fast becoming one of my favorite new writers.  (He worked with Greg Pak on Incredible Hercules, picked up the Marvel Zombies series and made it go from just good to great, and has done some really solid kid-oriented comics in the Marvel Adventures line.)  It’s far from the best issue of AmSpM, but it’s a nice introduction into how they’re handling Marvel’s best
character these days.

9.  BLACKEST NIGHT #7. The penultimate issue arrived this week.  This is a series that started out waaaaaay too slow.  I know it’s an epic, but give us some meat with our exposition, please!  Then it picked up speed (almost too quickly) more than halfway in.    Now, just about every dead DC character worth raising (and many who aren’t) is back, has a ring, and is looking for . . . What exactly?  Like most DC epics, I have a hard time understanding why I’m supposed to care about all this, and what the villain really wants.  Marvel does this so much better.  Call it simplistic if you want, but the stakes in everything from Secret Wars (the first of these kind of gang bang sagas) to Siege have always been clear.  Now, we see that Black Lantern Luthor is kind of an idiot—I guess the ring makes you lose IQ points along with any shred of morality, decency, or good hygiene); are told that the real goal of the “evil” lanterns is not evil but death, which is apparently the status quo for the universe (life is unnatural and fleeting, death is a constant); and the meaning of life is nothing more than a collection of our most extreme and identifiable emotions: Rage, Fear, Love, etc.  At first I thought this was deep, but now I see it as just facile.  It’s not that Blackest Night is bad, it’s definitely one of the best DC stories in many years, it’s just that it doesn’t look like it’s really going to change much of anything.  Except that, at the end, Guy Gardner will get his own book, alongside my favorite Green Lantern–Kilowog.  I even have a mini-mate of the snout-nosed powerhouse.  So at least that’s something.

Tags: Movies, Superheroes, Television