Comic Review: Perlman's 'Gamora', Tamaki's 'Hulk'.

Women in comics have begun to see a Renaissance in the last few years, both on the page and behind the pen. Significant female characters like Captain Marvel, Thor, and Medusa are face figures and cover stars of many of the big name books on the shelves. What were once comedy one-shot personalities like Squirrel Girl have seen a massive boost in popularity, and brand new heroes like Ms Marvel are surprise international bestsellers. 

More female characters getting their own books shows some great changes to the shelves, especially considering there are some fantastic characters out there that have been done disservices in recent years, by either runs cancelled long before their time, or being relegated to the background in team books.

Two new books taking off this year deal with two such major characters, and furthermore, both books have female writers at the helm. 

Nicole Perlman writes Gamora, the solo book of the classic cosmic marvel warrior woman, more recently brought into the spotlight by her role in Guardians of the Galaxy. Gamora is a character who has suffered somewhat over the years from a lack of definition. Different writers take her in different directions, and as a result, the details of personality are tough to nail down. She was a sidekick to Adam Warlock, a love interest to Nova, and a group member in multiple incarnation of the Guardians, but never had a series of her own before. Perlman's run on Gamora, taking the character back to her years as a youth, aims to fix this problem by bringing the Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy to the center stage.

Under the watchful eye of her adoptive father Thanos, a teen aged Gamora learns the art of war alongside her troublesome sister Nebula. A star orphan, Gamora's entire race was wiped out by the Badoon empire, and the young woman is driven by a powerful urge to see the alien race punished for their genocide. When the last breeding female of the Badoon royal family is located on a dying planet, Gamora defies her tyrannical father and scheming sister to carry out her revenge. However the young women she finds, and indeed the inhabitants of the doomed planet Ubilex, are not what she expected. 

The new Gamora we find here is still the fearless, brutal fighting warrior we've known over the years, but this younger (and better dressed) incarnation shows more heart, and more in her head than we've seen before. She has a voice, beyond that of 'the serious one' role she was constantly relegated to in the pages of Guardians. The teenage Gamora is entertaining, inquisitive, and even fun. It will be great to see where the run takes the daughter of Thanos as it continues.

We come to the opposite end of the personality spectrum in Mariko Tamaki's new She-Hulk series. Simply called HULK, the story takes us through the daily existence of district attorney Jennifer Walters, the woman also known as the Savage She-Hulk. 

She-Hulk has been through a lot both on and off the page in times gone past. A character depicted as anywhere from a rampaging allegory for menses, to a fourth wall breaking pin-up model popping out of her underwear, the character remains misunderstood, and often the butt of jokes. Only recently have writers taken more to the intriguing side of the character and explored the life of a working lawyer. Unlike attorney at law Matt Murdock, unknown by his clients to be Daredevil, Jennifer Walters hasn't hidden her identity as She-Hulk, so everyone from her clients to her coworkers know.

In Tamaki's new run, a side of Jen is explored that we really haven't seen before. The side of a woman broken both mentally and emotionally by the rigors of battle. After losing her close friend and suffering a near death experience at the hands of Thanos, Jen does what she hasn't in years, and returns to her every day appearance, a slight brunette, shy and stressed, just trying to start over with her life. Beginning work at her new law form, Jen meets hordes of new clients, all the strange cases that only the She-Hulk can handle. Trying to make it through her days one moment at a time, Jen struggles with PTSD, and coming to terms with the slow lack of control she finds in her own powers.

This is a She-Hulk unlike any we've seen before, taking the playful, perpetually confidant woman and showing the deep troubles present when she isn't showing her brave face to everyone around her. The exhaustion of the constant facade she presents, and the endless struggle to maintain her composure and not 'Hulk-out'. She's a sweet character, lovable and identifiable. The mysteries of her newest case, a freakish shut-in young woman being unfairly evicted from her home, are just one among the struggles she faces, as she's mansplained by coworkers in a building she could quite literally smash to rubble if she loses her cool. 

Both these books, while wildly different, are great shows of new writers work, and great new looks into classic characters. There's so much to explore here, and I'm looking forward to continuing both these runs. 

Both Hulk and Gamora are on shelves now. 

Movie Review: Logan.

There is something about the X-Men, be it the stories, the villains, the mature concepts and themes, that holds a special place in the heart for my generation more than most any other pop culture property. The scrappy, rough and tumble anti-hero Wolverine is one of the most persistently popular comic book characters of all time.

He's the favorite of millions, and his movie portrayal is one of the most beloved of any comic book character ever brought to the screen. Hugh Jackman's seemingly constant joy at playing the character has come through as enjoyable time after time, even if the films he's featured in have gone from great, to bad, to worse and back again in the last 20 years. When last year's Deadpool took the comic book movie, made it R-Rated, and walked away with the highest R-Rated opening week of all time, it was only a matter of time before the comic book names we really know took notice.

Logan is different in many respects from it's predecessors, but not different enough that it doesn't fit.
This film is the epilogue. The standing final chapter in the years and years that have passed since the goofy good vs evil of the X-Men's first cinematic outing. Logan is what happens after the spandex comes off, when all the old villains have been defeated, and the heroes have to live out their days. It's a film with a powerful reminder of mortality. Everyone, even superheroes, will grow old, and inevitably, no matter your heroism, everyone goes back to the dirt in the end.

Logan is a broken man, his seemingly timeless body suddenly aging, and his regenerative mutant powers becoming weaker day by day. The once infamous Wolverine is slowly being poisoned to death by the very adamantium that makes him so indestructible, reduced to working as a limo driver near the immense, nationally guarded US/Mexico border. There have been no new mutants born in over two decades, a dying breed swiftly becoming extinct.

Every penny he gets, Logan returns south of the border to bring to his last surviving allies, the malformed Caliban, and the feeble-minded shell of the man that was once Charles Xavier. Charles is kept locked away by his friends in a storage tanker to protect the world from the seizures that wrack his addled mind, his once incredible psychic powers now a dangerous uncontrollable side effect of a degenerative brain disease. Scraping together enough to keep Charles in his medication, and saving for the day when one day they can escape and leave the western world behind, is all that consumes the life of old man Logan.

However, a glimmer of the past greatness of Professor X remains, and in his moments of lucidity, Charles hears the whispers of  a new generation, the echoes of young mutant minds somewhere out there, crying out in need. When Wolverine is approached by a mysterious woman desperately seeking aid, he realizes that it may be time once again to take up the unwanted mantle of the Wolverine, and be the hero this broken future needs one last time.

Logan is a believable, awfully close-to-home future dystopia. Set in the year 2029, it shows so many echoes of reality that it can be a touch disturbing at time. The excesses of the wealthy so close to extreme poverty, cultural oppression verging on genocide, deportation and the promise of a better world out beyond the border are all events we see the ancestors of in the news as we speak.

This dark and truly adult film shines brightest in the main characters, and there are some performances here that are an absolute joy to behold. The aging titular hero and his mentor form a duo here that is probably better played than ever before. Logan is an honest, lovable, yet tremendously flawed hero, nuanced and complex. Patrick Stewart returns to the series to play the absolutely gripping, heartbreaking side of Charles Xavier we never thought we'd see. New protagonist Laura, the fulcrum of the film's plot, is one of the best child performances I've seen in years, her unfortunate character equal parts fun, frightening, and very moving. New faces, like the albino mutant tracker Caliban, and the villainous G-man Donald Pierce, fade a little into the background in comparison to the brilliant main characters, but there are no bad performances to be found.

The film does not shy away from using it's R rating thoroughly, be warned. You're not taking your kids to watch Logan leap around in spandex fighting Magneto this time. Logan rips through people with a glorious, shockingly graphic abandon here. In my viewing the audience was audibly shocked to gasping during the first fight scene. It is brutal, it is bloody, and it does not hold back. The very concepts of the movie itself are also of a more mature tone than you'd normally find in superhero properties as well. Real world themes of discrimination, child abuse, and persecution of the underclasses are all dealt with here. Also getting to hear Professor X say 'fuck' is a moment we've all been waiting for without knowing it.

If there's anything Logan lacked, in my opinion, it was a strong villain. With a hero as grand as the Wolverine, you need someone for him to go up against that matches him for strength as well as personality, and the latter was severely lacking here. It's a new story, only tenuously connected to previous entries in the X-Men franchise, but the big part of me that was aware it's the last one, really wanted to see a final showdown between Wolverine and his timeless nemesis, Sabretooth.

Logan might not even really be considered a superhero movie. It's a dystopian road movie, closer to the likes of Mad Max or Book of Eli than to X-Men. It's dark, and might be unforgivably so for some viewers. Part of the charm of comic book heroes is, they stay the same heroic age forever. We don't want to see our heroes get old, it feels too real. Logan will take your previous impressions of the X-Men characters and take them places they have never been before, and if you can handle it, it's one of the best films the genre has ever produced.