So, I am going to comment on Marvel's latest stupidity. I do not care that this is a spoiler. I really do not. So, while I will put in a gap, I am NOT putting this under a cut. I am too damn angry - and comics readers need to be warned, particularly if they are Captain America fans in any universe or medium ( Read more... )

I've been catching up with 'Agents of SHIELD' over the past few weeks, mainly because of promised impacts on the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe and so here they are. I am more than a little underwhelmed. I am trying to avoid spoilers here, but one or two things may be considered as minor such so let us cut...

( Minor spoilers possibly behind cut. )

Perhaps I went in with too high expectations - I am a great fan of the current comics interpretation of the Guardians - but after the over the top critical reaction to Iron Man 3 (which I really, really disliked, primarily because of a dreadful script devoid (we are told) of any ad libs by RDJ that took superb material and debased it) I do not ( Read more... )

So... Agents of SHIELD.

I was really looking forward to this, but I don't wear any fannish goggles when watching the pilot of a TV show, so I have to say it was by no means totally bad or offensive, just very ordinary and with a lot of faults.

( spoilers under the cut )

For many years, female comics fans (and some male ones!) have complained bitterly over the way female superheroes (and, indeed, female characters in general) are depicted in comic books, often in quite unfeasible poses and costumes. Well, fan artists are striking back. The result is The Hawkeye Initiative, over on Tumblr, where artists are ( Read more... )

Until very, very recently I had forgotten why, precisely, I gave up reading superhero comics for ten years in the 70s and 80s, and gave up Marvel for longer. I have, for fanfic research purposes and also because, hey, it's an era where important things happened to the Avengers, been reading collections from that era, to wit, The Bride of Ultron (# ( Read more... )

Hollywood steals from everything - books, short stories, TV series, comic books, videogames, fairground rides, real life and even itself. I've had a lot to say in the past about the adaptation of various novels, and the difficulties faced by scriptwriters working on the adaptations. (Not that this doesn't cut both ways: I've yet to read a ( Read more... )