Matt and Dan Go to the Movies- Deadpool

Dan Grote: Guys, I’m biased. You know that. Of the 119 posts I’ve written for the Matt Signal since February 2014, nearly 38 percent have been about Deadpool. This is a fan’s review.

That said, this movie nails it. Is it the best comic book movie ever? No. Is it the best Marvel movie? Also no. Is it the best possible filmic representation of my favorite character? Yes.

Ryan Reynolds, director Tim Miller and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick gave us a Wade Wilson who was funny, filthy, F’d up, violent and as much a thorn in the side of his enemies as his allies, all key ingredients in a Deadpool stew. If this movie were created purely as fan service, then sir or madam, I have been serviced.

And it’s a love story. Morena Baccarin (Gotham, Firefly) plays Vanessa as Wade’s equal in tragic backstory and sexual depravity. Trailers appeared to give her a little more to do than be damseled, which turns out not to be the case, but the strength of their relationship is still the movie’s emotional linchpin.

Matt Lazorwitz: And because the love story is important to the plot, the love story works! Since I only write about things I like on here, I’ve never discussed how love stories in superhero movies often feel tacked on, and lack chemistry between the leads. There are exceptions clearly (Chris Evans and Haley Atwell as Cap and Agent Carter jump immediately to mind), but often the standard romantic subplot in a superhero movie leaves me cold. Here though, because it’s important and it underlines so much of Wade’s motivation, it makes sense.

And aside from plot elements, Reynolds and Baccarin play off each other wonderfully. As Dan said, Baccarin plays her part as Wade’s equal, but she also is tough as nails and has a life her own. When Wade leaves, she goes on with her life; she’s not pining for him when he decides to come back. Morena Baccarin is becoming an actress with a ton of comic book acting credits, between Leslie Thompkins on Gotham, the voice of GIDEON on The Flash, and voicing Talia al Ghul in recent DC Direct-to-DVD films, but I have to say Vanessa is my favorite of her roles in a comic book property (Firefly/Serenity doesn’t count as a comic book property, so no angry comments).

DG: If there was one character I would have loved to have seen more of, it was Leslie Uggams’ Blind Al. I could have watched another five minutes of her and Wade arguing about Ikea furniture or Wade stroking her face with his regenerating baby hand. More of her in the sequel, please.

Deadpool works best when someone is trying to realign him from chaotic neutral to chaotic good. For the purposes of the film, that realigner is Colossus, a CGI character voiced by Stefan Kapicic, inheriting the role from Daniel Cudmore. Kapicic’s Colossus is a cartoon. His accent is ripped straight from the ’90s animated series (I kept waiting for him to yell “Illyana, my sister!”), and his personality is something out of a G.I. Joe public service announcement, whether he’s encouraging his trainee, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, to eat a healthy breakfast or lecturing Deadpool about how killing is wrong. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. To the contrary, it was just another thing that kept me laughing.

ML: Negasonic Teenage Warhead is a really deep cut, an obscure Grant Morrison character, played wonderfully by relative newcomer Brianna Hildebrand. Her quiet, sullen, surly teenage girl could easily have been eye-rollingly over played, but she keeps the right balance to it, and I liked that she and Wade wound up being friendly, if not friends. Also, it was great to see that under her Goth clothes she’s wearing an X-Men training uniform similar to those in the comics and in X-Men: First Class; little nods to the existing continuity make me smile.

DG: So can we all agree the final fight scene was staged at one of the three SHIELD helicarriers that blew up at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Obviously, nobody involved with the movie is ever going to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure a lot of people’s head canons are synchronized on this one.

ML: And little nods like that are part of Deadpool. There are a lot of references to Ryan Reynolds somewhat checkered past with superhero movies, like comments about green CG costumes and a mouthless X-Men Origins: Wolverine Weapon XI action figure. Also, while there is no Wolverine cameo, Deadpool makes a few barbed references to Fox’s previous mutant cashcow. And the fourth wall is completely shattered when Colossus says he’s bringing Wade to see Professor X, and not only does Wade ask “Stewart or McAvoy” but makes a continuity joke. These aren’t the jokes for every viewer, there are plenty of those, but the writers didn’t forget to lay out their fanboy Easter eggs.

Also, from a strictly movie making standpoint, the film had some great fight choreography. Sure, there are the standard bullet-time shots, but Wade’s pure brutality is spot on, and the fights are stylish. Also, credit for one of the best super strength fights I’ve seen between Colossus and Angel Dust. And while the soundtrack isn’t Guardians of the Galaxy’s “Awesome Mix,” the schizophrenia of bouncing from Juice Newton’s cover of “Angel of the Morning” to DMX’s “X Gon’ Give it to Ya” to Neil Sedaka’s “Calendar Girl” (used in a way I bet he never imagined) to Team Headkick’s “Deadpool Rap” seems to speak perfectly to the spirit of the character and film.

DG: The closing credits thank Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, who co-created the character 25 years ago, but so much of this movie’s DNA comes from writer Joe Kelly and artists like Ed McGuinness and Walter McDaniel who worked on the early issues of Deadpool’s first solo series. Ajax, Blind Al, Sister Margaret’s Home for Wayward Girls, Wade’s self-loathing and aversion to/infatuation with becoming a hero, the origin of his name and the already-dated-no-matter-how-topical cultural references are all Kelly’s brainchildren. And while we’re doling out credit, the fourth-wall breaking comes from Christopher Priest, the pansexual winks come from the Internet, and Nicieza is responsible for Weasel, Vanessa and Bob. Dopinder the cab driver is an original character.

Yes, the post-credits scene was anticlimactic, but that was part of the movie’s metatextual commentary. And, hey, I’m still pretty excited that we’re getting [redacted] in the sequel. 

The Matt Signal (Brief and Non-Spoilery) Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I've been sitting and milling over exactly what I wanted to say about Star Wars: The Force Awakens for a while now. I went into this movie having read and seen as little as possible about it. I went in with high hopes but a nervousness that I haven't felt for a movie in a long time.

And it was good. It was very good. I enjoyed it a lot.

This is going to be a very short reviews, mostly bullet points, because I don't want to give anything away, but here are the things that jumped out at me.

-There was a good deal of intentional twinning with the events of A New Hope. Certain character beats and settings intentionally evoke strong ties to the film that started it all, but at the same time aren't so close as to be rip-offs.

-The performances ranged from OK to excellent. There was no performance that I was pained to watch. The two leads, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, were wonderful. They had great chemistry and delivered everything they were given perfectly. I loved Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron (more on him in a minute). I was hoping for a little more nuance from the villains, but at the same time this is Star Wars, and nuanced villains have never been part of the film franchise, so I'll take what I can get. It was great to see the old guard back too, but saying too much about their performances could make me slip up and spoil something, so I'll leave it at that.

-My favorite character was the aforementioned Poe Dameron, The EU gave me a taste for quick-witted pilots (Thank you Michael J. Stackpole and Aaron Allston's X-Wing series), and this guy was a Rogue or a Wraith in screen. He was tough, a great pilot, and funny! That's a character that was made for me.

-Since I haven't read any behind-the-scenes stuff yet (that's a goal for this evening), I don't know how many of the effects and sets were practical vs. CG, but everything felt much more practical than the prequels and many big-budget sci-fi movies. The world felt lived in and real, not as spic and span as CG usually looked. I also thought the two truly CG characters, Supreme Leader Snoke and Maz Kanata, were both far more realistic than any other CG character this side of Gollum. Luita Nyong'o as Maz was a great turn,

-I love Chewbacca. Man, if the new continuity does nothing else, it gave us potential for more tales of Han and Chewie being scoundrels, and that just makes me happy.

-It was funny, and the humor was drawn from character, not slapstick or poodoo jokes! There were some really funny moments, especially Poe's first meeting with Kylo Ren, and the revelation of exactly what's Finn's job was working at a First Order facility (I had to backspace over "Imperial" there twice).

I could ramble on a lot more, but I want to just leave that there, let it all sink in some more, and maybe write something longer and fuller after my second or third viewing. And there will be second and third viewings. May the Force be with you all!

Up Against the Wall: Who is Amanda Waller?

Every comic fan has a few characters they love that aren't the marquee names. Sure, Batman's my favorite, always has been and will be. But I have a special place in my heart for the likes of Pete Wisdom, The Shade, Lucifer Morningstar, and Graimjack. And Amanda Waller. I have been waiting for the confirmation on her casting in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie before I did this post, about the history of one of the greatest characters introduced in the past 30 years, and now that Viola Davis has been confirmed, I thought this was a great time to talk about what makes The Wall so great.

Amanda Waller was introduced in Legends #1, written by Len Wein and John Ostrander, the first major DC Comics crossover after the universe restructuring Crisis on Infinite Earths. She was presented as the person organizing the new Suicide Squad, in this case a team of supervillains who had been offered reduced sentences if they took part in risky, probably lethal, missions.

Waller became one of the central figures in the Suicide Squad monthly that spun out of Legends, a book that many fans consider one of the great mainstream comics of the 80s. And for me, one of the main reasons for that is Amanda Waller. Waller was a completely new character, and one who wasn't like anyone else is comics. She was a short, stocky, dark skinned African American woman. And she clearly was tough as nails. And she only got tougher the more you got to know her. John Ostrander, who with his wife Kim Yale wrote the entire series, had created a character who just grabbed your attention. She had no powers, but was willing to stand up to the lunatics who were working for her, to gods, and most impressively, to Batman. If there's one image that sums up Waller to me, it's the cover to Suicide Squad #10.

Super heroes and villains of height and muscle are cowed by one look from Batman. And this woman who stands a head and change shorter than him is standing up to him and telling him off! How awesome is that?!?

But Waller was a much deeper character than just a shouting, grumbling harridan. She was deeply loyal to family and those few who she considered friends. She came from Chicago (native city of creator Ostrander), having gone from living in the Cabrini-Green Projects to serving as a congressional aide before finding out about the Squad and reforming it. Under Waller, the Squad sent missions into the Middle East and the Soviet Union, as well as other political hotspots. She never had a problem watching the members of the team die in the process, although the slipping sanity and eventual death of team leader Rick Flag Jr., not a convict but a volunteer, weighed on her. She was even willing to serve prison time for her convictions, when she used the squad for an unsanctioned mission to eradicate a drug cartel in New Orleans.

After leaving prison, Waller took the Squad freelance, working closer with them as they served as mercenaries. Suicide Squad ended with Waller retiring, but she remained a supporting character, popping up occasionally in the DCU in books like Eclipso (where she led a group of heroes against the God of Vengeance Eclipso), and in various crossovers. She even served as Secretary of Metahuman Affairs under Lex Luthor during his presidency.

After the Luthor Administration folded, Waller once again organized the Suicide Squad under the US government, and then graduated to being the White Queen of the UN sanctioned superhuman response organization, Checkmate (as an aside, I think Waller might be the only White Queen who could show Emma Frost a thing or two about being in charge). This was during the excellent Greg Rucka run on the Checkmate series, the first time Waller felt right as a character since Ostrander stopped writing her. This was a Waller again who was ruthless and cunning, running her own missions behind the back of the rest of Checkmate. She is eventually dethroned when her secrets are revealed, but she goes on to run the Suicide Squad again, and to secretly manipulate the Secret Six, a team featuring former Suicde Squad mainstay Deadshot.

But like most characters in the DC Universe, the New 52 deeply effected Waller. The new Waller is still the head of the Suicide Squad and is still a force to be reckoned with. But the new Waller is both model thin and has a lighter complexion. I don't want to talk about the specific connotations of this too much, partly because I don't feel qualified and partly because, when the casting rumors started, Jospeh Phillip Illidge did a better job of it than I ever could in his piece on Comic Book Resources, but I miss the original Waller. She was a character was diverse, and not just on race but on something ever rarer in superhero comics: body type. She had a very distinct visual, something that made her stand out. And again, look that that cover! I'm sure current Waller could fight Granny Goodness too, but the classic just looks totally badass doing it!

I also think the new Waller loses a little something in her changed background. Instead of being a political manipulator and operative, this Waller is a soldier, having been a member of Team 7 and working her way up through the ranks. She's still a schemer, and still as tough as before, but again, I have a preference for the Waller who was willing to fight gods without the formal training. Still, new Waller has been the head of the Squad, head of A.R.G.U.S. (the New 52's US government metahuman liaison organization) and former her own Justice League to counterbalance the classic League in case they went rogue. That's not a bad list of credentials.

Viola Davis is an incredible casting choice, one I think is excellent, but she's far from the first Waller on screen. For a character who is less than thirty tears old, she has appeared in more TV and movies than you would expect, and I think with Davis, she is now the second most portrayed female DC character, second only to Catwoman. Yes, there have been more Amanda Waller's on screen than Wonder Womans. That's a testament to how great the character is. Pam Grier played her on Smallville, where she was a queen of Checkmate. Angela Bassett's performance was one of the better aspects of the lackluster Green Lantern movie, despite the odd choice of making her a government scientist instead of a government agent. And Cynthia Addai-Robinson plays Waller as a recurring character on Arrow; she much more resembles to current Waller, but does retain the hardness that makes Waller such an impressive character.

But my favorite Waller outside of comics is, probably not shockingly, an animated version, the one from Justice League Unlimited. When I was dream casting in my head back in the day, the actress who I pictured playing Waller was CCH Pounder, late of The Shield and Warehouse 13. And wouldn't you know it, but CCH Pounder voiced this version of Waller, as well as other animated DC projects, and she's perfect. Her voice immediately commands respect. And the portrayal was spot on. From Batman appearing in her bathroom while she showered and her not even blinking when she finds him in the bathroom, demanding a towel, to her touching scenes with Batman Beyond Terry McGinnis in the brilliant episode, "Epilogue" this was exactly how I pictured Waller. And since she was on JLU, I got an Amanda Waller action figure, which might have just ended my need for any other action figure ever.

As a final note, another reason to be glad for the casting of Viola Davis is the fact that she's an impressive actress who can hold her own. So much of what we're hearing about the new Suicide Squad movie makes me worried that it's going to be "Joker and Harley and their wacky friends." The Joker is a force of nature as a presence on screen, and I feel like the person standing up against him needs to rise to the occasion. I think Davis is an actress strong enough to make the Joker step back and cringe, to hit all the right notes to be the best Amanda Waller we've had on screen yet.

With Amanda Waller's profile only raising with the upcoming Suicide Squad film, there will be plenty of new material and hopefully collections of classic material. Right now there are trades available of all the New 52 Suicide Squad. The classic Squad run had one trade, which may or may not still be in print, and sadly the Checkmate material is out of print. But Gail Simone's Secret Six is coming back in print in new volumes, and Waller's turn there is another great appearance. And there's always new episodes of Arrow and classic Justice League Unlimited if you want to get to know the first lady of comic book espionage better.

Strange Days Indeed: Who is Doctor Strange?

Yesterday, Marvel Studios announced that Benedict Cumberbatch, best know for playing Sherlock Holmes in the BBC's Sherlock, had been cast as Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, Sorcerer Supreme. While this is a big announcement for some of us, Doctor Strange isn't exactly the biggest name in comics, probably better known than the Guardians of the Galaxy, less so than Iron Man. So, as a public service, here's some background on the good doctor, and a few stories you might want to check out.

My personal history with Doctor Strange begins, aside from an appearance in an episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, where a lot of my history with Marvel characters does: with The Infinity Gauntlet. Strange was a principal character in the battle to stop Thanos and his god-like power, not just in the main mini-series but with crossovers into his own title. Strange would continue to have a large part in the sequel, The Infinity War, and a smaller roll in the final part of the trilogy, The Infinity Crusade.

Doctor Strange is a character with a long history, having first appeared in 1963 in Strange Tales #110 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. But unlike the other major Lee/Ditko creation, Spider-Man, Strange has had a hard time holding down a series. He has had no fewer than three ongoing series that have ended, plus runs in Marvel Premiere and numerous mini-series. This isn't to say he's a failure as a character; he is still mainstream comics best known magician and has been active even when not in his own title, as a supporting character or a member of the Defenders or the Avengers.

As origins go, Stephen Strange was one of the world's best surgeons, or if you asked him, the best. Arrogant and callous, Strange cared for no one but himself. But after a car accident cost him the use of his hands (in most versions of his origins, an accident caused by his own carelessness or drunkenness), Strange went on a quest to find a way to repair them. This finally led him into the Himalayas, where he met the Ancient One, a mystic who agreed to tutor Strange. Here he learned magic and selflessness, taking up the mantle of Master of the Mystic Arts, and eventually Sorcerer Supreme. It is Doctor Strange's duty to keep this dimension safe from incursions for Hell, The Dark Dimension, and any other plane of existence.

As power sets go, Strange's magic makes that kind of hard to classify. The rules of magic are a little hard to describe, as they are flexible to fit the story, so Strange can do pretty much anything. Usually there are lots of raybolts of energy, binding spells, and the like. He does fly using the Cloak of Levitation, and wields the Eye of Agamotto, the amulet at the neck of the cape, that allows for visions and truthseeing. Many of these powers he draws from the Vishanti, a triumvirate of extra dimensional beings, named Agamotto, Osthur, and Hoggoth,the last of which gives us Doctor Strange's signature comic book catchphrase, "By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!" It might not be, "It's Clobberin' Time!" but I still think it beats, "Oh, my stars and garters!"

That's really all you need to know up front. One of the good things (and/or problems) about so many cancellations and new beginnings is that Doctor Strange is often returning with a mostly clean slate. The baggage is often discarded to provide a clean new start that will be the one that's a hit. That hasn't happened in recent years, but with a movie coming I'm sure we'll see it tried again. Strange does have certain key supporting characters and nemeses, though, and here's who they are,

Wong was introduced in the same issue as Doctor Strange, and has been Strange's manservant since that first appearance. Initially, he was simply the inscrutable Asian stereotype you couldn't get away with now, who had served the Ancient One as well as Strange, silent and always with a fortune cookie of wisdom. But over the years he has developed, and his backstory in some versions now involves him being a former student of the Ancient One as well, and besdies being a master martial artist, he is now more Strange's partner, friend, and aide rather than simply his servant.

The Ancient One is the master sorcerer who trained Strange. Sometimes portrayed as a smiling, Yoda like mentor, he is usually instead a hardass who will smack down Strange any time he gets too big for his britches, even returning from the other side to do it. He is not to be trifled with.

Clea is Doctor Strange's on again/off again love interest (they are currently off again). His wife at one point, she is the daughter of Umar and niece of Dormammu (both of whom we'll get to in a  minute), and is often fighting for the freedom of the people in her native Dark Dimension. She is a powerful sorceress herself, and has been Strange's apprentice.

Rintrah was another of Strange's apprentices and... oh, who am I kidding? We're never going to see Rintrah again. I just think the fact that he's a greenish minotaur is one of those great things that flies pretty much only in comics.

Baron Mordo is Doctor Strange's oldest foe. A fellow apprentice of the Ancient One, Mordo was corrupted by Dormammu, and tried to kill the Ancient One and steal his power. Strange interfered, and began a rivalry that lasts until today. He is Strange's opposite number.

The Dread Dormammu is an extradimensional demon who has designs to conquer Earth. He is constantly attempting to break the barriers between dimensions and bring an army of evil, or just his own form, onto our plane of existence, often using puppets like Mordo. This constantly draws him into conflict with Strange, and depending on who you ask, he might be Strange's arch-foe even more than Mordo.

Umar is the sister of Dormammu and the ruler of The Dark Dimension. A despot, she usually comes into conflict with Strange at the behest of Clea, her daughter, who tries to liberate the people from her rule.

If all those crazy characters and magic have drawn your interest and you want to learn more about Doctor Strange, here are some places to start.

Essential Doctor Strange Vol.1-4: Marvel's late and lamented line of big, black and white collections of classic comics has four volumes for Strange. The not only collect all the stories by Lee & Ditko, which include all sorts of great crazy art by Ditko, but stories from Steve Englehart, Roger Stern, and Jim Starlin. I only have one to three personally, and am on  my own quest to find a volume four.

Doctor Strange Vs. Dracula: The Montesi Formula: I've written about my love of Tomb of Dracula before, and this trade not only collects the crossover between Tomb and Doctor Strange, it also contains a later story where Doctor Strange is in a race against time to find the  Montesi Formula, the spell that will wipe out all vampires, before Dracula takes over the world. It's an exciting story, and a worthy successor to the original Tomb of Dracula series.

Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment: One of Marvel's original graphic novels, this volume not only is written by Roger Stern, one of the definitive Doctor Strange writers (I know some people go with Lee or Englehart but for my money, Stern is the best), but it features early art by Mike Mignola. After a sorcerer's duel to determine the world's best mage, the Doctors, Strange and Doom (best known as the Fantastic Four's archenemy, but a pretty good sorcerer in his own right), must make a trip to Hell to retrieve the soul of Doom's mother. Strange gets some really cool moments, but I have to say that Doom steals the show in his dealings with Mephisto.

Doctor Strange: The Oath: While not the most recent attempt to restart a Strange franchise, this is one that I feel like had the most potential. Written by Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Y:The Last Man) and drawn stylishly by Marcos Martin, this is a story that draws comparisons between Strange's oath as a doctor and as a sorcerer. It does great things with the relationship between Strange and Wong, and gave Strange a new love interest, Night Nurse, the doctor to the superheroes.

Doctor Strange: Season One: A couple years back, Marvel created a line of graphic novel's called Season One, where their principal heroes got modern retellings of their origins. The volume for Doctor Strange, from creators Grek Pak and Emma Rios, was one of the highlights of that line. The story does a great job of fleshing out Strange's journey from selfish tool to superhero, builds a solid relationship between Strange and Wong, and adds mythologist Sofia Do Cosima (created by Pak for his Incredible Hulks) run on to Strange's cast. It's a globe trotting, action story with strong characters, and is a great place to start if you want to get a good sense of Doctor Strange.

Strange is also a regular member of the cast of New Avengers, so if you need your monthly dose, that's where you can head. I'm sure we'll be getting a new series for Strange before long, too, and I have some ideas of cool places that could go. Maybe there's a post in that soon... But until then, may the Vishanti protect you.

Matt and Dan Go to the Movies- Guardians of the Galaxy

Matt Lazorwitz: So, while we didn't go together, both Dan and I saw Guardians of the Galaxy over this inaugural weekend, and so now it's time for our second tag team review! Let's start off with Dan.

Dan Grote: Guardians of the Galaxy is great for two different kinds of people: Those who love the cosmic Marvel characters and enjoy hunting for Easter Eggs, and people for whom none of these characters existed prior to this movie.

As much as Guardians is a brand-new concept for most moviegoers, the film doesn't feel like there’s homework required, nor does it hold your hand through excess exposition for the most part. Personally, I haven’t been into the cosmic characters since Matt and I scripted Infinity Watch 2099 fan-fic (try and guess around what time that was!), [Editor's Note: Hey, it was the early 90s, we were in our early teens, and this is how we thought you got into comics, send a pile of reference heavy fanfic to a comic company, and they would love us. If only that were true] and even then the only characters from this movie that I knew were Gamora, Drax and Thanos.

ML: Coming from it at the other end of the spectrum, as a guy who spent time writing a piece that was a run down of these cosmic heroes before going to see the movie because they are my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe, I was really impressed. Not only did they get the tone of each character spot on, but those Easter Eggs weren't club you over the head, wink at the camera Easter Eggs. They were part of this big, crazy, gorgeous world that director James Gunn and his team built.

DG: Avengers notwithstanding, the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have largely been confined to their little corners. The Asgard corner, the World War II corner, the S.H.I.E.L.D. corner, the Stark Industries corner, etc. Space is not a corner, and director James Gunn understands that. To quote Saturday Night Live’s Stefon, this club has everything: Kree, Sakaarans, mad Titans, tree monsters, raccoons with weapons fetishes, space hillbillies, an Earthling, blue people, purple people, green people, white people, Stan Lee, Lloyd Kaufman, etc.

ML: So many of these wacky and bizarre concepts come together in one of my favorite settings in the Marvel Universe, Knowhere, the floating, severed head of a Celestial that has been turned into a space station, a concept I never thought I'd see on screen. Not only was it done on screen, but it was done in a really impressive way. It strikes me as a sci-fi version of one of my favorite scenes from another comic book movie, the Troll Market sequence from Hellboy: The Golden Army. While all the scenes in Knowhere are littered with Easter Eggs (none more than the Collector's menagerie), it's more than just Easter Eggs. It's this fully formed and rendered world where everyone seems as strange and out of place as the Guardians. Standing against the clean, white spaces of Xandar, it makes the universe seem a wilder, more expansive place.

DG: I’m very much enjoying the trajectory of Chris Pratt’s career. I remember when he was the popular jock on Strangers with Candy. He was one of the ancillary characters who helped improve the fourth and final season of The O.C. He’s the idiot heart-and-soul of Parks and Recreation, and because I have a 3-year-old, I’ve seen The Lego Movie about a bajillion times. His Star-Lord is the perfect rake-as-hero (think Gambit without the Cajun accent and the rape-y vibe), and I look forward to seeing him in more things.

Lee Pace makes a great Ronan the Accuser, who turned out to be a much more imposing villain than I had expected. The movie does give us a little more Thanos, but he’s still not a fully realized threat. Ronan, on the other hand, is deadly, spouting threats, taking on the entire Nova Corps and throwing even the hulking Drax across the room as the Infinity Stone drives him to new levels of zealotry. The people casting and designing Apocalypse in the next X-Men movie should take notes.

ML: And while he was only really on screen for a moment, there was a great sense of grandeur and menace from Josh Brolin's Thanos. I've been waiting to get a real look at the most cosmic of Marvel bad guys, and I was not disappointed.

DG: Also a surprise was the depth Bradley Cooper brought to Rocket. When he was first cast, I thought I would have rather seen a professional voice guy like Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers, Venture Bros.) or John DiMaggio (Futurama, Adventure Time, Batman: The Brave and the Bold) handle the character, but Rocket wasn't just there for comic relief. He’s an equal member of the team with his own reasons to be empathized with, and the Oscar-nominated actor performs admirably.

ML: The major surprise for me was Dave Bautista in the role of Drax. I'm not a professional wrestling person at all, so I had no exposure to Bautista as an actor before this (yeah, I said it), but I have found that a lot of times, pro wrestlers have a hard time getting out of the character they play there when acting in other parts. Dwayne Johnson is a notable exception, and Andre the Giant's turn in The Princess Bride is legendary for a reason,  but there's a reason that Hulk Hogan played pretty much himself in Rocky III and there was no Oscar talk for his roll in 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. Bautista brings layers to Drax. The writing gave him a really solid arc to work through, and Bautista played rage, to understanding, to empathy. Drax can be a one note character in the comics, so I was glad to see that Bautista was given this to work with, and that he rose to the challenge.

The core cast is rounded out by Zoe Saldana, whose Gamora wasn't given a ton to work with. A lot of what she had to say and do was designed to move the plot along, but the always sterling Saldana did a good job with her character moments. And while Vin Diesel only said five words (many of them repeatedly) throughout the entire movie, he does a great job with the nuance of them, and warms your heart at just the right moment. If you walked out liking Groot, and wanting to see more of him, it wouldn't hurt to check out The Iron Giant, the animated film by The Incredibles director Brad Bird, which starred Diesel as the titular robot.

DG: There are a few characters I would have liked to have seen more of, as is the way with any front-loaded flick. The Nova Corps, staffed by high-quality actors such as Glenn Close, John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz, essentially act as machines to advance the plot. Same, too, goes for the Collector, though Benicio del Toro gets to both advance the plot and play Easter bunny, as most of the movie’s eggs – including the post-credit scene – are in his basket.

ML: My favorite of those Easter Eggs was the appearance of another character I never would have anticipated in a movie: Cosmo, the psychic Russian space dog. I mean, that is a concept that could only be created for a comic book, and despite only getting a couple cute cameos, he was still there! Now for a bigger roll in Guardians 2...

Also a shout out to the way the film dealt with Yondu's power. Yondu as a character was one of the most changed from his comic book persona, but I loved how they kept his sonic controlled arrows as part of the character, and how it looked. It was yet another neat touch.

DG: Without spoiling, the post-credits scene is most notable for not setting up a future Marvel movie. Not Avengers 2, not Ant-Man, not Doctor Strange, nothing. Just one last surprise, everyone-in-the-theater-gasps-then-claps joke.

ML: My final note is just how much I loved the soundtrack. I'm a sucker for music of the 60s and 70s, and have spent most of the weekend humming either Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede or O-O-H Child by the Five Stairsteps. That funky juxtaposition just seemed to work for me.

I AM GROOT! And You Are?: A Guardians of the Galaxy Primer

Today, Guardians of the Galaxy opens in theaters. Two years ago, pretty much no one outside a small group of fans knew who the Guardians were. I'm lucky to be someone who has followed the exploits of this incarnation of the team since its inception. I'm not saying this out of a sense of hipster, "I was a fan before it was cool." No, I'm saying it because I feel that, having followed these exploits for a number of years, it gives me a good perspective to give a rundown of the team's recent history to those of you less familiar with them, either to get you ready to see the movie, or to give you some more background if you were one people who went to see it last night (I'm going after work, so there will be something posted in the way of a review either this weekend or Monday).

The original Guardians of the Galaxy were a team of freedom fighters introduced in 1969, whose adventures took place in the distant future. There, a group of aliens fought against the evil Badoon, who had conquered our solar system. That team came back in the 90s for a successful run, originally drawn by Image founder Jim Valentino, but when that series ended, the Guardians fell into limbo, only making an occassional appearance.

Marvel's outer space characters were all pretty much moribund in the late 90s into the early 00s. Since the end of Infinity Trilogy (Infinity Gauntlet, War, and Crusade) and the cancellation of Silver Surfer and Warlock and the Infinity Watch, attempts had been made, with new series featuring such characters as Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, and Thanos, but none had really caught on. But in 2006, writer Keith Giffen took that little corner of the Marvel Universe and exploded it. After doing six issues of a Thanos series, and then a four issue Drax the Destroyer mini-series, he wrote Annihilation, a six issue event mini-series with various tie-in mini-series, featuring an attack from the Negative Zone (an alternate universe) by the forces of Annihilus, a classic Fantastic Four villain, and his army, called the Annihilation Wave. This series returned the original Nova, Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, and various others to the forefront of the Marvel Universe.

The following year, Marvel followed the series up with Annihilation: Conquest, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who would shepherd the team for the next few years. This was the story of when the empire of the Kree, a race of warlike aliens, was conquered by The Phalanx, a race of techno-organic beings (basically, shapeshifting robots things that possess people), under the control of the Avengers villains, Ultron, who you might have heard of connected to another upcoming Marvel film. Not only was the cast of the original Annihilation back, but added were Adam Warlock, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot.

With Ultron defeated, things might have settled down. But Warlock, who I've written about before, knew that the cosmos was threatened. These wars had weakened the walls of the universe, and someone needed to, well, guard the galaxy, hopefully stopping another war that might bring further damage. So Warlock went to Peter Quill, the hero known as Star-Lord, and Quill gathered the various beings who had fought with him during the Phalanx war, creating the new Guardians of the Galaxy.

It was a big team, not just featuring the five members of the current/movie team (all of whom I'll get into detail about shortly) and Warlock, but various other unusual characters. These included Mantis (the celestial madonna and psychic), Quasar (Phyla-Vell who was the daughter of legendary cosmic hero Captain Marvel), Bug (an insectoid alien warrior), Moondragon (daughter of Drax and lover of Quasar), Major Victory (one of the original future Guardians who was displaced in time and gave the team it's name), and Jack Flag (a human hero fleeing trouble on Earth).

The Guardians might not have been the lovable losers the TV commercials make their movie counterparts out to be, but they certainly were a ragtag group. The cosmic heroes of the Marvel Universe had always been A-List powerhouses who could go toe-to-toe with the likes of Thor without blinking. But most of these Guardians were low on the power scale, and were saving the universe with little more than wit, gumption, and a whole lot of luck.

Over the course of a series that ran two years, the Guardians faced many of Marvel's great cosmic threats. They fought the Universal Church of Truth, who sought to convert the entire galaxy to their religion. They were caught up in a war between two of the great alien empires, the Kree and the Shi'ar. They briefly disbanded when it was revealed that Star-Lord manipulated many of the more reticent members to join, only be to regathered by the unlikely Rocket Raccoon to save Star-Lord, who had been sent to the Negative Zone.

But their greatest foe came from within. To stop the universe from ripping itself apart, Adam Warlock was once more transformed into his darker self, The Magus. He manipulated many of the team to be his servants as he took over the Universal Church of Truth, and opened the Fault, a crack between universes, to allow a malignant universe entrance to his own. He died in the process, but the Guardians now had to face down a team of dark Avengers who were the champions of that universe. Allying with Nova, the Guardians traveled to the heart of the Cancerverse, the name given to this new dark universe, with the one being who could stop it: Thanos, worshiper of Death and cosmic warlord, the greatest threat our universe had ever faced. In the end, they succeeded, but at a great cost; to allow the others to escape, Nova and Star-Lord stayed behind, to keep the mad Thanos in the Cancerverse as it collapsed. And that was the end of the Guardians of the Galaxy...

... or so it seemed. The Guardians returned, with Star-Lord again in the lead and no explanation, in the pages of Avengers Assemble to do battle with a similarly mysteriously returned Thanos. The Guardians have gone on to headline their own series, where they do their best to protect the helpless, standing up to great cosmic empires like the Spartax, Shi'ar, and Badoon, being joined by the mysterious Angela, and Avengers like Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Venom.

Since the team began to really form in Annihilation: Conquest, there have been five members who have been around pretty much consistently, and they form the backbone of the movie team. Here's a quick rundown on who each of them are.

Star Lord, Peter Jason Quill, has one of those convoluted comic book histories that make your head spin. His origin has been tinkered with many times over the years, which is better explained over on this column from Comic Book Resources, but what you really need to know is that he is the son of a human woman and a prince of the Spartax Empire, and has a bad habit of getting himself into trouble. When he first appeared in the modern comics, he was in prison. Freed to help fight the Annihilation Wave, he was again imprisoned when his attempt to network all security of the Kree Empire allowed the Phalanx to invade their system. Sent on a suicide mission to redeem himself, Quill met his fellow future Guardians, Rocket, Groot, Mantis, and Bug. Quill continued to seek personal redemption for his past crimes by leading the Guardians of the Galaxy and protecting the universe. Since returning from the Cancerverse, he has become more of a rogue, a sly trickster who enjoys the ladies and thumbing his nose at his father, J'Son of Spartax, who is now the king of the Spartax Empire, but is no less a champion of the little guy. A skilled marksman and tactician, Star-Lord often looks before he leaps. The upcoming story beginning in the August issue of Guardians of the Galaxy, will reveal how Star-Lord and Thanos escaped the Cancerverse, and the fate of Richard Rider, the Nova who was lost. He also headlines his own series, Legendary Star-Lord.

Gamora is known as the Deadliest Woman in the Universe, and that reputation has been earned. After her people were wiped out by the warlike Badoon, Gamora was taken in by Thanos, who trained her to be his own personal assassin. Gamora eventually betrayed Thanos to aid Adam Warlock, and she used her skills for the betterment of the universe. Meeting Star-Lord during the Annihilation War, Gamora was one of his first recruits for the new Guardians. Cold and deadly, Gamora is possibly the toughest member of the team, unmatched in the use of sword, blaster, and her hands. Her gruff exterior hides a good heart, though she does take time off from the Guardians to take on the occasional mercenary job.

Drax the Destroyer has a complex backstory, one intrinsically tied to Thanos. Drax was once human Arthur Douglas, who saw a space ship while driving along a desert road with his wife and daughter. The spaceship, not wanting any witnesses, fired on Douglas's car, killing him and his wife, and leaving their daughter to be taken in and raised by other aliens, to become the heroine Moondragon. When cosmic forces wanted a champion to stand against Thanos, whose ship had killed him, Douglas was resurrected in a powerful new body, that of Drax the Destroyer. Drax has died and returned many times, each time slightly different. Originally a cosmic juggernaut, then a childlike giant, now he is smaller but more clever (at least in the sense he's smaller than let's say the Hulk, but bigger than pretty much anyone else you'll meet), and deadlier than many beings with his knives and knowledge of hand to hand combat. Drax's return to life is almost always tied with the return of the being he was created to destroy, and while he aids the Guardians in their noble goals, Drax always has one eye open for Thanos.

Since they met during the war with the Phalanx, Rocket Raccoon and Groot have been inseparable. Both imprisoned by the Kree, Rocket and Groot were sent on a mission with Star-Lord. They have been a pair of the most earnest Guardians, doing their best to save the galaxy because it's the right thing to do and its fun. Rocket comes from Halfworld, a planet of anthropomorphic animals. He is not just a crack shot, but an expert tactician and star pilot. He has a thing for large firearms. Groot is from Planet X, and aside from his giant size and strength, he can regrow himself from the smallest of fragments. All he can say is, "I am Groot!" although those who understand him know that there is nuance in exactly what that means. Interesting fact, he is actually one of the oldest characters currently in use in Marvel comics, having been introduced in Tales to Astonish when it was a sci-fi comic in 1960, predating nearly all Marvel superheroes. Rocket Raccoon has his own ongoing series, with Groot as his buddy and supporting cast.

So, those are the Guardians of the Galaxy. Every indication is that the movie will be packed with appearances and cameos by a legion of cosmic Marvel characters, and I might write up a little something about those characters after I've seen the movie. If you want to check out more Guardians, there is the monthly comic series for the team, Rocket, and Star-Lord, and this past week saw the release of the first of two volumes collecting the entire 2008 series that introduced the team.

Batman 25 Years Later: An Appreciation

The past few days have been kind of hectic, so pardon the lack of my normal reviews, especially since it was a strong week. You should check out the first issue of the final Fables arc, the first issue of the new Kill Shakespeare series, Mask of Night, the new issue of Batman: Eternal with some great art that is nothing like the DC house style, a BPRD story featuring Kate Corrigan and flashbacks with a young Hellboy, and new issues of both Manhattan Projects and Fatale from Image.

But now we're here to discuss something completely different. We're here to talk about this movie:

Yes, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the release of the 1989 Batman movie. I want to talk about this movie because it was, for nine year old Matt, a transformative film. Before this movie came out, I read the occasional comic. I liked Super Friends cartoons, Super Powers action figures, and syndicated episodes of the classic West/Ward Batman TV series. But this movie? This thing blew me away.

While it's not as popular to badmouth this movie as it is to badmouth say Batman and Robin or the 60s Batman show, there is a growing fanbase on the internet (which means it could just be three people with lots of accounts) who look at it and just see faults, mostly in relation to the recent Nolan Batman films. It's cheesy at times, Batman is seriously messed up in the head, and it feels often like a Tim Burton film more than a Batman film, although not as much of a Tim Burton film as its sequel, Batman Returns. But let's strip it down to its nuts and bolts and look at it for what it was: the beginning of a new cultural phenomenon.

While the classic Superman film with Christopher Reeve spawned three sequels, that was pretty much all it did. We didn't see a massive stream of superhero movies after that. And while X-Men was still eleven years down the line, and Spider-Man thirteen. Blade was nine years away, and is in many ways the cultural descendant of Batman: dark, brooding, with an anti-hero and a dark sense of humor. And both Dick Tracy and Rocketeer, both under appreciated in my opinion, are garish, big period comic book based pieces that would not have gotten as far as they did if Batman hadn't been then hit it was. And it was a hit, ushering in a new wave of Batmania. That summer, everywhere you went, you saw Batman. It was glorious.

My boss at the comic store has often said that movies and TV shows don't really effect comic sales, with a couple of exceptions. The Walking Dead is one of them, and so was this movie. I feel like a lot of the speculator boom of the 90s comes from exposure caused by this movie; that or this movie hit a rising wave just at the right moment to crest it. But as I said, this movie got me reading comics. I got all the toys, all the trading cards, all the books. It was the first PG-13 rated movie I got my parents to let me see. And I got the VHS tape for Christmas. And a few weeks after I got that tape, I went into a comic shop for the first time, and bought Batman #445, the first comic I ever bought for myself. Now? It's twenty five years later and I haven't missed an issue since.

So that's a lot of reminiscing, but what about the movie itself. Not even knowing about this particular upcoming anniversary, I stumbled upon Batman playing on BBC America a couple weekends back, and happily found out I could still pretty much recite every line of dialogue, even though I hadn't watched it in a couple of years. Shows you how many times I watched that fabled VHS tape.

The plot of the movie is a combined origin for Batman and his arch foe, the Joker. It does more to tie their origins together, something that is completely removed from the comic, but for building a new cinematic world, it works fine (something similar has been done by Brian Michael Bendis by tying Spider-Man's origin to Oscorp in Ultimate Spider-Man). The movie's Batman isn't precisely that Batman of the comics. He walks the razor's edge of sanity a little closer than Batman does. His sort of mad reaction when he confronts Joker in Vicki Vale's apartment, and his sleeping hanging upside down like a Bat are both things Batman wouldn't do. And it can be argued that his reaction to Joker in Vale's apartment is all a ploy, but I feel there's a character beat in there as well.

But despite these issues, Michael Keaton nails Bruce Wayne in the initial party scene. When he confronts reporters Alexander Knox and Vicki Vale, and sort of quips his way through the encounter, it's a great piece of acting. The private Bruce is somewhere in between that face and the Batman, which is an indication that this Batman's persona is either still forming or is more fragmented than the persona in the comic. There's a vein of psychology I feel writers Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren are mining in this movie.

And that is where, for all its failings, this movie succeeds: it presents Batman in multiple dimensions. This isn't either the golly shucks gee Bruce Wayne in a cape on Batman '66 or the psychotically driven Dark Knight of Dark Knight Returns. It's actually closer to Steve Englehart's Batman from his brief run on Detective Comics, with Vicki Vale taking on the roll of Silver St. Cloud. It's a Batman who on some level wants some normalcy in his life and just can't find it. That's a theme that Christopher Nolan used in his Dark Knight trilogy as well, with Rachel Dawes as the object of Bruce's affection.

The other major performance of the film is that of Jack Nicholson as the Joker; Nicholson actually received top billing, and the film is as much about his Joker as it is about Batman, something many Batman films would do afterwards. Nicholson's performance is not as frighteningly deranged as Heath Ledger's Joker, but it is actually very funny at times. This is a Joker who is as unpredictable as he is megalomaniacal, someone who states, "I want my face on the one dollar bill," and seems to really believe he can pull that off. The chilling moment when he first sees his face as the Joker is still one of my favorite cinematic scenes.

While people may argue about story and acting choices, the part of this movie that is next to impossible to deny is its gorgeous vision of Gotham City. The stylized, part forties-part now costumes and cars gives the movie a sense of timelessness, and is something taken even further, and perfected, by Batman: The Animated Series. But it's Anton Furst's gothic architecture that really was something else. Gotham was never the same after that, and the look was officially adapted into the comics in a three issue arc called "Destroyer" that ran through the three Batman titles at the time (remember when there were only three Batman titles? Those were the days). It gave the city a life of its own that has set the precedent for all superhero movie deigns sense.

So, now at the end, I sit back and remember nine year old Matt, playing with his Batman action figures and recreating scenes from the movie, and creating his own stories. I don't think he ever would have imagined, twenty five years later, he would still love Batman, be writing about him, and would still look forward to a fresh Batman comic every week. But maybe he did. One way or the other, I owe a lifelong passion to a movie from twenty five years ago, and I just felt like I needed to stop and reflect before I started off on the next twenty five years. Good times still to come, one and all. Hope you'll stick around for them.

Matt and Dan Go to the Movies- Captain America: The Winter Soldier

(This past weekend saw the release of Marvel Studios newest film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. So your humble host, and contributor Dan Grote, went out to see if the movie lived up to the hype. Here's what we thought)

Dan Grote: Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a movie of basements with sub-basements, secrets with sub-secrets, ops within ops, escapes via quickly created holes in the ground, and tall buildings with really long elevator rides and easily shattered glass. And Cap and Black Widow go to all the floors.

My friend Rob called it the Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after he saw it, on account of storytellingwise, it's easily one of the best of the bunch (up there with the first Iron Man and Avengers). But I'd compare it to a different Star Wars movie, considering the mission at the end is essentially to blow up three death stars by exploiting the womprat-sized weakness at each of their cores. Also, Robert Redford’s character finds the lack of faith of the other members of the World Security Council disturbing.

Matt Lazorwitz: While I see both those comparisons, I would liken the movie more to The Dark Knight. Both are intense, action based films with plots that mirror current political fears. In 2008, urban terrorism was a fear that permeated every day, which granted hasn’t really changed, and that film’s Joker was this idealized (for want of a better word) urban terrorist; he just wanted, “to watch the world burn.” The Winter Soldier deals with a fear that has come to the fore in the past couple of years; the fear that Big Brother is watching. In a day of Edward Snowden and the NSA leaks, the idea of terror using what the government has set in motion, or the government using that knowledge to itself instill terror, is a real one, and the film takes it to the logical endgame in a world where things like S.H.I.E.L.D. exist.

DG: Seriously, though, this movie is more than two hours long, but I would have gladly sat for three. As someone who loves Cap, especially Ed Brubaker’s run on the book, this movie gave me everything I wanted: Action heroes with dry, cool, wit; geopolitical intrigue, a WarGames reference, at least three cameos that made me smile despite my dropped jaw, what briefly appears to be an old British woman who isn’t Helen Mirren fighting people, and Alan Dale.

Most refreshingly, it was leaps and bounds better than Captain America: The First Avenger, which, let’s be honest, was a two-hour-long Act I, as much as I enjoyed it.

ML: While I haven’t read the Mark Waid mini-series of the same name (and I know I need to, especially with some real good press on it lately), this is one of the best examples of showing how Cap is a, “man out of time.” He doesn’t dwell on it, and it’s not just played for laughs, with scenes of him looking at iPods and commenting about record players, like it could have been. But the general sense of not fitting in, of not knowing who he is and where he should be, was done perfectly, not dwelled on, but always there. And the final action scenes of the movie, where Cap re-dons his World War II era costume, both show who Cap is and when he is most comfortable, but also are physical representations on the theme of the world of the past in conflict with the world of the present being crafted by Hydra.

DG: The relationships between the movie’s main protagonists are spot-on, especially between Cap and Falcon (Anthony Mackie is a fantastic addition to the MCU, btw). There's always a danger of Falcon being treated as Cap's sidekick, but that was never the case. They were always partners. And in the movie they find common ground as soldiers having a hard time adjusting to being “home,” which provides a perfect way to weave in Sam Wilson’s background as a social worker in the comics.

ML: The rapport between Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie was clear from the film’s opening scene. The two played off each other perfectly, not just in how they were written, but how they were realized by two great actors. Evans has come into his own as an actor as Captain America, and while he hasn’t done a, “golly shucks,” sort of performance, he’s always stood apart. Giving him a friend in the present lets us see a different aspect of him. And Mackie plays the Falcon as a hero in his own right, looking to Cap for inspiration but not looking at him as his boss.

DG: Cap and Black Widow make great work spouses, which is good, because ScarJo eats up a lot of screentime. It’s pretty much a team-up movie the whole way through. She and Cap even go on a Scooby Doo-like adventure in a dusty old basement with a secret room behind a bookcase (which leads to my favorite surprise scene in the whole movie).

And Cap and Fury, well, it could have ended up being more of the same from Avengers, if they hadn't removed him from the equation early on.

ML: I was also happy to see Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill given a time to shine. Maria Hill in the comics is a hard character to like, as she seems to be just to the left of classic Marvel hardass government guys like Henry Peter Gyrich, always waiting for the heroes to screw up. Here, she is Fury’s loyal right hand, and has plenty of action scenes and plenty of brains, and works with Cap and company not begrudgingly, but as part of the team.

There are actually quite a few strong female characters in the film, especially when you look at it in comparison to other superhero movies. Black Widow and Hill alone would be impressive, but when you also factor in Emily Vamcamp’s Agent 13, who doesn’t get a ton to do, other than have some great fight scenes, but is set up nicely to be the female lead in Cap 3 (hopefully Black Widow will have graduated to her own film by then), you have more women fighting then in pretty much any movie I can think of that isn’t specifically an ensemble movie about women warriors. And one final note, Haley Atwell’s brief appearance as an aged Peggy Carter is both beautiful and tragic.

DG: Directors Joe and Anthony Russo are known for their work on NBC’s Community, and you can see that show's genre-bending humor in the movie, especially when they play with tired action flick cliches like threatening a low-level baddie with a fall from a tall building to extract information.

There are a couple of shots toward the end that are boldfaced homages. Cap plunges into the water - again - and after Cap is shot in the stomach, he lies in the exact same pose He did when he was killed in the comics. And of course the scene where all the fake D.C. cops attack Fury reminds of the Blues Brothers (and, uncomfortably enough, of racial profiling).

With that same Fury scene in mind, I want to tell whoever first thought of having a car or truck flip forward and explode in movies this: I love your work, but I'm worried it's been overused, especially in superhero movies (see also X-Men: The Last Stand, The Dark Knight).

Also as you watch this scene and the rest of the movie, ask yourself: Why was Fury the only person allowed to have bullet/shatterproof glass? If I lived in the MCU, after this movie, I would invest in a glass factory; that’s all I’m saying.

Audience observation: There were at least three people in a not-that-packed theater who gasped when the Winter Soldier took off his mask. Compared to some of the other surprises in this movie, this one was horribly kept, but I’m happy those people got an extra thrill.

ML: Before we get to wrap ups and final thoughts, I figured it best to actually talk about the film’s title character, the Winter Soldier. This film is so much more than that, more than just about that one figure, but I frankly couldn’t think of a better title, and it certainly is one that is dynamic and interesting. Sebastian Stan does a great job acting with just his body and eyes. His origin works well here, fitting seamlessly into the universe that has been crafted, and Stan plays the tormented side of the character as well as he does the ruthless side. I don’t know exactly where they’re going with him in the future, but I hope we get to see more of his interaction with Cap.

DG: Biggest quibble (and I don't consider it all that legitimate a gripe): Batroc was not Batroc-y enough. I'm not saying I wanted the purple-clad French martial arts master to be a joke, but I did want him to fight with more bravado and braggadocio. At the very least yell "Zut alors!"

Random observation: In the first action sequence on the ship, when Cap takes out the first pirate from behind, I really wanted the words "Y silent takedown" to appear on the screen, because I've been playing a lot of Arkham Origins lately.

Trailer notes: I was disappointed the Guardians of the Galaxy was the same one from two months ago. Next to Lucy in my notebook, I wrote "ScarJo is LIMITLESS SPECIES." Who the hell looked at Kelsey Grammer's resume and said "How have we not put him in the Expendables movies?" I do not buy Megan Fox as April O'Neill.

ML: This film had some of the best fight choreography I have ever seen. The up close fighting between Cap and Winter Soldier was that tight, Taken style, with tremendous economy of motion, while fights between other characters was broader and more open. I like how Black Widow doesn’t fight like Cap, who doesn’t fight like Falcon. That was smartly done.

As a personal pat-myself-on-the-back moment, when Agents of S.HI.E.L.D. debuted, I observed that it felt like the season’s seeming big bad, Project Centipede, were like Hydra, and wouldn’t it be great if that played into Winter Soldier since it would be coming out near the end of the season. This is being written Tuesday morning, so I haven’t seen the new episode yet, but judging by scenes from last week’s episode, I just might have been clairvoyant.

Oh, and just in case you don’t know, stay through the credits in this one. There are two scenes like in Thor: The Dark World, one mid-credits, teasing an upcoming Marvel Studios film, and one at the end, giving a final sting to this movie. It’s 2014 and we’re nine movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe; I was shocked at the number of people who got up right as the movie ended, and more shocked at the people who left after the first scene. You stuck with it this long; what’s five more minutes?

So, in the end, the consensus here on The Matt Signal is that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the strongest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a good film over all. On a scale of one to five, this one gets five cybernetic Soviet issue arms up.

(Post movie trip to the Bargain Book Warehouse. Yes, I wore an Invincible t-shirt to see Cap. You don't wear a band's t-shirt to their concert, you don't wear a superhero's shirt to his movie.)

My Batman Isn't Your Batman, and That's OK, Even If My Batman is Ben Affleck.

Pardon me, as we interrupt this week's regularly scheduled recommended reading with an op/ed piece.

Comic book movie casting is incredibly divisive in fandom. If you've ever spent anytime in a comic book shop, or on the comic book internet, you've seen it. And when I signed on to check Twitter yesterday evening, I admit to being completely shocked by two things. First, by the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman. I mean, I'd been thinking about all sorts of actors, and Affleck wasn't even on the long list, let alone the short one. But what really shocked me was the sheer level of vitriol being spewed by nearly everyone.

Now, as I said, comic geeks on the internet spewing venom is par for the course, but this was pros, both creators and journalists, rending their garments and declaring undying hatred for Affleck, DC, Warner Brothers, and Hollywood in general. And as I read down, and saw the occasional positive comment, all it did was make me shake my head in wonderment. There's something to be said for the emotion that the casting of a fictional character can bring about, and what it means to people. And Batman means a heck of a lot to me, as much if not more than to a lot of the irritated masses. But I wasn't that angry. And I'm going to give you two reasons.

The first is the simple one: We haven't seen the movie. We haven't seen anything about how they're portraying Batman. Affleck might not be your cup of tea. He's not an actor who I go to a movie to see, but I will say he's shown a lot of growth as an actor since Daredevil and Phantoms (although he was the bomb in Phantoms. Hands up if you recognize THAT obscure reference). I've said this before about the way comic fans react to announcements of new creators on comics or a change of direction; there is a preconception about liking a creator/plotline, and there's this immediate, flying off the handle response. If you have seen something and hate it, then you can rant and rave til your heart's content. Until then, maybe you should give it a try. You might actually like it; it worked with green eggs and ham. If Dr. Seuss told us something, it's probably right.

But more than that, the thing that made me look at it, shrug, and think that this isn't that big a deal is that, frankly, this Batman too shall pass. Batman is a character who is just shy of seventy-five years old. Do you know how many actors what played Batman on screen? Seven, and that's if you're not counting voice actors. You factor that in, both TV, movie, and video game, and the number hits the upper teens if not the twenties. And I don't think any one of them has ruined the character. And it doesn't make the old movies you may or may not have liked disappear.

I have a very specific vision of who and what Batman is. I've written about that before. But a new interpretation doesn't nullify those other versions. This was a big discussion when DC's New 52 initiative started, and a lot of fans were angry that the stories they had read, "didn't matter," anymore. And I'm sure if the internet existed at the time, we would have a similar reaction when Crisis On Infinite Earths happened. But DC staff said is true: that stories you love matter to you, and that's where it really counts. DC didn't come to my house and burn all my post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint comics, and I can still revisit those versions of the character whenever I want.

When it comes to Batman on screen for me, I have a personal favorite vision. And it's not either Chrsitopher Nolan or Tim Burton. If you want the ideal Batman movie, you have to go no further then the oft-forgotten gem that is Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. It's the big screen movie from the creators of Batman: The Animated Series, and it is brilliant. It has a solid, coherent plot that doesn't crumble in the third act, some of the slickest animation you could imagine, and voice acting from Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and Joker. It is moody,smart, and I'd wager half of you reading this haven't heard of it, and maybe half of you who have haven't seen it (it is available on DVD, and if you haven't seen it you should check it out). But I don't think I've ever seen a Batman more true to my vision than that one. But that didn't stop me from loving Christopher Nolan's vision of Gotham too.

And speaking of Batman: The Animated Series (B:TAS for short from here on out), let's briefly talk about Batman in animation. The last time I heard nerd rage nearly to this level was each time a new animated incarnation of Batman has been introduced since the run of B:TAS wrapped. I wasn't a huge fan of The Batman, although I warmed to it in its last couple of seasons. But I remember a major huff when the idea of Batman: The Brave and the Bold was introduced. A light, kid friendly Batman? "NOOO!" cried fandom, "Not Adam West again!" But after a couple episodes, I know I was completely sold, and I think a lot of other fans were too. It was a different take on the character, but Batman wasn't the joke in the series, and while he wasn't the dark avenger of B:TAS, he was a hero and played the straight man in a ridiculous, sci-fi world, and there was charm in that. And because fanboys never learn their lesson, when Beware the Batman was announced, there was a similar outcry. The computer animation, the special ops Alfred, the use of Katana; all seemed to stir up a lot of wrath. I'm still not completely sold on the animation, I prefer traditional to computer animation in most cases, or the actual design of Alfred, but I've enjoyed the series thus far, and plan an Animated Discussions on it shortly. It's a solid show, and the choice of villains have been really interesting.

I understand the casting of an actor and the complete reboot of a comic book universe or new animated series aren't a perfect analogy. There are additional elements at work in the movie casting, including the belief that the actor can't carry the role, or that it's stunt casting or favoritism. There's an intense feeling of possessiveness that comes with being a fan. And if you do choose to skip the new Superman/Batman movie because you feel that strongly about Ben Affleck, go for it. Stay home and rewatch Batman or The Dark Knight and once again experience those interpretations. But me? I'm willing to give it a shot. I might be surprised. Or I might hate it. But I'm gonna give someone else's Batman a shot for a bit and see what they have to show me.