Comic Review: Legion

Of all the recent superhero shows filling the box the last few years, none have quite stood out like last years out-of-nowhere sleeper hit, Legion. The psychedelic, music inspired sci-fi comedy horror romantic-drama told the story of a troubled antagonist, inspired by the X-Men franchise's character of the same name.

It's been a while since we've seen David Haller, as Legion much prefers to be called, in the comics. Last seen in a truly seminal run penned by Simon Spurrier, X-Men Legacy confronted the nature of Legion's many personalities, giving them individual faces, names and forms, and ended with the incredible finale of David's fractured mind finally coming under  his own control at last. Sane at last, David uses the reality editing power of his ultimate personality to remove himself from history, choosing to exist only in the mind of the woman who loved him.

Now Legion is a complex character, and not just thematically. Since his introduction in The New Mutants, David Haller  has been through the ringer. He's a deeply haunted and troubled young man possessed of a plethora of conflicting personalities, some good, some evil, and some utterly beyond human understanding. Over the years writers have taken him from a mentally handicapped child, to an all powerful anti-villain splitting universes apart, to a lonely traveler seeking redemption.

Milligan's Legion begins at an unspecified time in David's life, when the wandering mutant, garbed in his hospital scrubs, is tormented by a fierce and dominant new personality, Lord Trauma. Desperately seeking freedom from his increasingly aggressive alter-egos, David encounters New York Psychologist Hannah Jones. A shrink to celebrities, Dr Jones appears to be encountering strange and unexplained phenomena all her own, with apparitions and hallucinations warning her of dangerous events to come.

Finding each other in their time of distress, David Haller and Hannah Jones meet, and perhaps will be able to help each other. 

There's some great moments in the first issue of Legion, with the sinister telepath Lord Trauma manifesting himself in the brain waves seen as David undergoes an Electroencephalogram being a particular high point. The interior art is stylish and colourful, Wilfredo Torres using a mix-up of dutch angles to leave us feeling as off balance as the characters within the story, and the sharp blacks and hard edges are reminiscent of classic Mike Allred work. The cover image is a puzzling one though, which shows a much more cartoony styled theme than what new fans of the character attracted by the show are likely to take to.

Where Peter Milligan's Legion fits into the greater picture of the character isn't clear yet, but I do hope it acknowledges past (or future?) events from the previous runs (and please don't forget David's often neglected accent Pete!) There's still a lot to explore with the character, and a whole plethora of new personalities to explore it with. If anyone can do justice to David's twisted and warped mind, Peter Milligan is sure to write from experience.

Comic Review: All-New Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are a team that's close to my heart. A group of space faring adventurers, travelling the galaxy and surfing the fringes of heroism. 

The team have been around, in some form or another, for decades now. The ever changing team a protean lineup of anti-heroes, weirdos, and genuine superheros. Until recently, you never quite knew who you were going to get each time a new issue rolled around. 

With the surprise success of the film adaptation, the lineup has solidified somewhat around five core characters. Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the Galaxy, stand-out fan favorite duo Rocket and Groot, and their plucky leader Star-Lord. They are all great characters, to be certain. It can't be easy juggling five main characters every issue, even if one of them doesn't exactly have much dialogue. 

Keeping the balance between five protagonists isn't easy, especially in a book with a strong comedic tone. Who's the funny guy? Basically all of them, if you do it right. Giving five heroes fair screen time, and crafting a story on top of it all, isn't an easy job. 

For the last five years, the Guardians of the Galaxy reins have been gripped in the hands of Brian Michael Bendis. 

Now it's very popular to take a shot at Bendis. He's the butt of a lot of jokes for comic fans and creators, but to call him a bad writer just wouldn't be fair. He's created memorable characters, been at the helm of some great stories, and pens more books in a season than many other writers do in years. 

Not every writer is a good fit for every book, however. As a huge fan of the characters found in the Guardians of the Galaxy, his work on it left a lot to be desired. The series added members every few issues, with Captain Marvel, Angela, Eddie Brock, Kitty Pryde, and the ever lovin' blue eyed Thing to name a few. Stories became predictable, verging on repetitive. In the five years past, without going back to look, I can only remember a scant handful of events that transpired within those pages. It lacked a cohesive story, an appropriate villain, and love for the heroes it dealt with. A writer need not introduce brand new members to the team each week when they have yet to flesh out the characters that are on the cover. No one picks up Guardians of the Galaxy and exclaims "Wonder what the Thing is up to this month!"

By the end of Bendis' run. A quote from one of my favorite stage plays often came to mind: 

Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

It was time for a change. 

I was thrilled to hear that the pen was being passed to Gerry Duggan. A younger writer, Duggan is currently best known as the driving force behind turning Deadpool from a Looney Tunes character into a hero with weaknesses, complexities, and sharper comedy than ever before. He delivers characters with real voices.

From the pages of the first issue, there's a lot to love about the All-New Guardians of the Galaxy. 

As our heroes pull off the most over-the-top smash and grab bank robbery in galactic history, we already see development in the characters we know. Drax has been soul searching, maybe finding new ways to do things in life, new mysteries from Gamora's past arise to befuddle her team-mates, and Groot has reverted to his sprig form, a mysterious growth halt afflicting the botanical hero. 

There's an enigmatic antagonist to be found in the form of the Grandmaster, a collector of unique baubles from around the galaxy. Blackmailing the Guardians into obtaining a new acquisition for him, the Grandmaster's plans threaten to sever the professional relationship the Guardians have with a certain other cosmic Collector. 

The artwork from Aaron Kuder is clear, colourful, and kinetic. Most of the Guardians have even undergone a design shift for their new story as well, distancing them a little from their movie counterparts, helping separate them from sometimes overbearing movie personas.  

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy is off to a vibrant start, and I'm eager to see where Duggan takes the characters. There's a whole lot of room for weirdness in that big old space up there. 

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #1, written by Gerry Duggan with art by Aaron Kuder, is on the shelves today.

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

While it takes great creativity to start a film series from nothing, it takes both bravery and love to follow on with a worthwhile sequel. James Gunn is a director that, way back from his Troma roots, continues to show ample amounts of all three.

2014's Guardians of the Galaxy was the pleasant surprise of the Marvel cinematic universe. An original story, with characters positively unheard of to the every day moviegoer (and practically to comic fans as well), it proved to be the most fun and enjoyable entry in the superhero universe to date, as well as one of the highest rated films of the year.

With the predicted major releases of further entries in the MCU like Thor 3, Avengers 4, and recently reclaimed properties like licence-to-print-money Spider-Man, I did not expect Guardians to get a sequel.

Luckily, Marvel seem to realize what they have in Gunn, and he returns with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, once again at the helm writing and directing with total creative control. These are characters he is clearly deeply passionate about, in a story told with great bravery, and a whole lotta love.

We return to our team's adventures following the defeat of Ronan the Accuser as they ply their galaxy guarding trade far across the universe. The team fight together as a well-oiled machine, rescuing valuable batteries from an intergalactic starfish monster while listening to classic tunes. It's clear that the group have grown closer since the last film. Tighter than friends, they are virtually family, even playing group parents to the tiny infant Groot.

Returning from their adventure, the Guardians encounter the Sovereign, a race of privileged 'perfect' people. Gold skinned, beautiful, and effortlessly fabulous, the Sovereign are one of the most fun-to-hate alien species I've ever seen in film. The Sovereign find dire offence at the slightest perceived affront, and soon enough the Guardians are fleeing an army of insulted intergalactic trust fund kids.

When their pursuers are fought off single-handedly by an unknown figure, the guardians are confronted by their strangest new encounter yet, in the form of the mysterious and powerful Ego.

Elements of each character's past are explored in Guardians Vol 2, and we find out a little more about our heroes. Family plays a strong role in the story told here. There are powerful tales of families past, ranging from the hidden history of Star-Lord's parentage and the tragedy of Drax's fallen wife and daughter, to families broken in need of healing, as Gamora's estranged sister Nebula seeks her out across the stars. Even Rocket, a creature who has no true family to speak of, finds brotherhood in the strangest of places.

As before, the ancillary characters are some of the best, with some brilliant performances by returning faces like the lovable rogue Yondu, as well as many new ones. The Ravagers are wilder and weirder than ever, a complete riot. Once again, Guardians shines in its incredible use of both on set makeup and digital effects to create some standout looking characters.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 is a quieter film than its predecessor by leaps and bounds. The time between action set pieces may be a bit much for some seeking excitement, but the time is well filled, and evenly paced throughout. For a story spanning galaxies and worlds it is also surprisingly focused, with no major sub plots intersecting, preferring to focus more on one neater story.

Once again the gallery of characters is juggled well, with everyone playing their part. While Vol 2 is chiefly a Star-Lord story, characters are never left to fade into the background, and new faces like Mantis, an adorable and naive alien empath, are given ample time to shine. The merchandising-friendly fan-favorite, Groot, is wisely not turned into a gimmick, and with more economical screen time, is never reduced to being predictable or a repetitive joke. An ensemble cast of this size isn't without weak links inevitably, and for the second time I was left unimpressed with Nebula. Easily forgotten when she's not on the screen, her role seems to demand a weight that isn't reflected in the performance delivered.

A trademark of the series, the film is also packed with enough easter eggs to keep you searching, and character cameos both obvious to the casual fan, and so obscure that even comic book fanatics will be wracking their brains.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 stands apart from the other Marvel movies. Not only literally, as the story does stand alone, but in feeling. It is a story more of heart than of action, more of family than of friendship. It is a very well put together film, and bozhe moi, does it remain a lot of fun from start to finish.

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.

Comic Review: X-Men '92.

If there was one single crystalline thing I can think of in my youth that I can say got me into comic books, it was probably the X-Men cartoon series.

It was a truly genre defining element of the after school lineup when I was 6 or so. It was the typical high octane goodies kicking the crap out of baddies that you would find on any action cartoon of the time, but filled with an incredible depth of kid-friendly social commentary. All the strongest characters were women, and the main villain had a justifiable motivation of his own. There was serious complexity to be found at 4pm on weekday afternoons. We absorbed that stuff, us kids did.

We watched Beast be unfairly denied bail and go to prison, just because he was a mutant. We saw the legacy virus ravage the mutant population, and watched mutants be ostracized for it even though it could spread to anyone. The setting may have been fictional, but the problems were real, and there was a lot to learn from in these stories.

X-Men ran for 5 years, and a lot of people that grew up with it still consider it their favorite adaptation of a comic book property. The incarnations of certain characters here, like the outrageously accented Gambit and Rogue, or the nefariously evil arch-villain Apocalypse, are considered by many to be the finest versions of the characters in any medium.

It would seem impossible to return to the halcyon days of the X-Men Animated series, but indeed, through the miracle of science (and Secret Wars) it seems we've done it. This week, X-Men '92 #1 comes out, and brings up back to that world we left so long ago. Yellow spandex and all.

The first issue of X-Men '92 brings us back to the halls of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters (where else?) where class is in session under the guiding hands of professor McCoy. When class is interrupted by the return of a mysterious villain from the past, and his messages of a great evil to come, it kicks off what promises to be an entirely original plot, with some new characters introduced too.

It's good to see characters back in old costumes again, eyesore outfits from decades past and personalities echoed we'd long forgotten. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek for the overall style, with writers Sims and Bowers clearly aware that the same audience who loved the cartoon are probably all roundabout 30, and play to that idea well. There's even some cameos from mutant characters I personally thought I'd never see again (Long live the X-Statix!). The artwork of Alti Firmansyah fits perfectly, being both reminiscent of the cartoon whilst still being sharp and stylish.

It will be very fun to see what direction X-Men '92 takes in the long run. The time frame of 1992 is less a hard fact and more a rough suggestion of the zeitgeist, as we see movie posters for films that hadn't been released as of 1992 for example. With virtually no ties to the rest of the Marvel universe as it currently exists, the story bears none of the burden that comes with upholding the collective canon. What other characters will turn up? What accent will they write Pyro with? Only time will tell.

Movie Review: Deadpool.

Deadpool is a huge risk for the studio that made it, everyone knows this. A character popular with fans of the genre but almost entirely unknown to everyone else, and an R rated superhero film to boot. There hasn't been a successful one since Blade. How this film got made is probably a fantastic story in itself. Whoever talked such a thing into production will hopefully now be investigated, because Deadpool is fucking great fun for everyone involved.

For those who haven't read comics or walked into a Hot Topic in the last year, Deadpool is one of Marvel's current flagship characters. The alternative to the goodie-goodie stock heroics of Iron Man and The Avengers, Deadpool is a fast talking gun-for-hire with a split personality who constantly abuses the fourth wall. Translating this to other mediums is touchy, sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. Deadpool had a great video game release a few years ago that took the violence and quirkiness of the character and ran with it in a really fun way, but attempts to translate the character to novel form felt weird, and attempts to shoehorn him into the family friendly box for some of Marvel's cartoon shows left the character feeling justifiably neutered.

Making the Deadpool movie an R, and a HARD R at that, was the wisest thing anyone could have done with the property.

Deadpool pulls no punches. You'll see the most graphic violence on the screen so far this year, with the wise cracking mercenary cheerfully dropping F-bombs as he causes a multi car pileup and decapitates a motorbike rider with his own bike chain in the first few scenes. Then Deadpool turns to the camera, address the viewers, and invites us to enjoy his story. It's a story filled with blood, violence, naughty naughty words, elder abuse, masturbation, and a surprising amount of full frontal nudity for a film that, at some point, someone at Disney had to sign off on.

There isn't much depth to the plot, but it doesn't feel too light. It's an origin story, mixed with good old fashioned revenge. Deadpool takes us through his fated life as a street mercenary, spending his free time with the rowdy crowd of a local bar, where he meets Vanessa; the woman of his dreams, a take no shit prostitute who can talk Star Wars and generally best him at life decisions. The backstreet romance that Wade and Vanessa share is more convincing than most forced partnerships you'd see in a rom-com. When Wade is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he finally finds he has a reason to live, and so signs up for the terrible mutant experimentation of cockney-as-fuck supervillain Ajax.

Ajax probably isn't a villain that gets comic fans excited, he was a second rate character in the source material, but the Deadpool character does have a startling lack of true villains of his own in any medium, and what is done with Ajax on screen is really good. He's a no-nonsense, professional bad guy. More like something out of Lock, Stock than The Avengers. The urge to have him act like a supervillain is subverted in favor of him being a genuinely nasty piece of work.  When Ajax's horrific forced evolution experiments turn Wade into the hideous Deadpool and leaves him for dead in a blazing inferno, Deadpool pulls himself from the wreckage embued with his new mutant powers and a thirst for revenge.

There's pretty much just a first act and a third, and I could have done with a bit more meat in between, but keeping the pace moving with the snappiness it does, took careful work, and maybe shaking that up wouldn't work. There are an assortment of side characters, like Wade's friend and confidant Weasel, who is somehow both comedy sidekick and straight man foil at the same time, and the brilliant Blind Al, a character much loved by fans who is just fantastic here. All of these characters only see brief screentime, which is a shame in my opinion, some of these little characters needed plot resolution too.

Deadpool's only genuine allies along his path to revenge are Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead. The inclusion of these two X-Men property characters is actually incredibly well done in a few ways. It opens the door to most of the best fourth wall breaking jokes in the movie, as well as somehow giving the hint of an expanded universe in a more enjoyable way than ever before.

The most noticeable thing about Deadpool is that it doesn't really feel like a superhero movie. It is an action-comedy-romance-horror. A romactiohoredy, if you will. It has scenes of a relationship more honest and fun to watch than a lot of other films out there, and scenes of claustrophobic body horror that'll make you squirm, The action sequences are visually stunning, with incredible fight choreography. The writing is noticeably sharp. Deadpool is in almost every scene in the entire movie, and talking through each one as he goes, and he doesn't get irritating, he's lovable. His quips are closer to the observations you'd hear watching MST3K than the sort of goofy stuff Spider-Man would come out with. The humor is current and en pointe, with just enough line toed between jokes for everyone and jokes for comic fans that no one is left bewildered by the comedy.

I believe Deadpool will be loved by fans. Deadpool is a ton of fun in almost every way, it's one of the most satisfying adaptations of a comic book in years, and most impressive because it's managed to make itself more adult than the source material. Perhaps most importantly, the success of Deadpool could mean the reevaluation of the R-Rated comic book movie. It could pave the way for properties like Preacher, Transmetropolitan, and Rat Queens to be seriously considered for the big screen, and expanding the world of what is acceptable in film is beating censorship, and that's fantastic.

Comic Review: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

If a series gets two first issues in the same year, you know it's got to be either really good, or a shameless cash in.
Thankfully, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (Volume 2?), by Ryan North and Erica Henderson, is heaps of the former, coming out with a great first issue, for the second time this year.

With not much comedy on the shelves in modern day, it's good to see Marvel put out something both alternative, and actually really funny. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is, in essence, a superhero sitcom, with our titular heroine attending college, making friends, and defeating villains on the side. This incarnation of Squirrel Girl is the most well formed of the character to date, with a distinct lovable personality, yet remaining grounded and not too looney to be unrealistic. For a character who talks to squirrels as her main superpower, she's remarkably identifiable, being an otherwise typically socially awkward young woman.
The dialogue is sharp and witty, falling somewhere between the humor of 'Communuty' and 'Spaced', with a cast of exceedingly likable new characters like Squirrel Girl's college roommate, the cat-obsessed computer science major Nancy, and the beginnings of Squirrel Girl's own adorable animal-themed supergroup: Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi (Who talks to fish and slowly grows to fit the size of his container)
It's sharp on the social commentary, in a not-so-subtle-in-your-damn-face kinda way, with all the main characters being modern college students, they talk like actual young people, and the whole thing is a nice breath of fresh air, both with the multi-racial characters and the openly feminist themes. Also returning is the mini commentary by the creators in tiny text at the bottom of every page, offering often hilarious insight. 

The downfall here is that Squirrel Girl's personality in other comics may seem derivative after reading The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, as her personality elsewhere just doesn't match up to her wit and intelligence here. She's a recent addition to the New Avengers team, and her appearance there (so far, at least) is occasional one panel comic relief.. With a passing joke about her new teleporter in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, they blew away all the comedy in the New Avengers in one go. Squirrel Girl as a character is evolving because of this series, and it may take a while for other books to catch up to that.

The funniest thing about The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl may be her almost meta-awareness of her place in the Marvel Universe. She heads over to Tony Stark to borrow a Squirrel shaped Iron Man outfit, because she can! She's friends with Deadpool, because who wouldn't be? There's a brilliant throwaway gag as Squirrel Girl's mother explains exactly why technically (and legally) Squirrel Girl isn't a mutant. It's fun stuff, and the new series looks to be even better than the last. With writer Ryan North finding a continuous pace that keeps getting more enjoyable to read, and artist Erica Henderson giving a distinctive, expression heavy style to the characters that fits perfectly.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is one of the best comedy books of the shelves at the moment, not because of obvious jokes, but because of charm and character. If the strength of the new first issue is any indication, it looks like Squirrel Girl has a lot of adventures ahead.

 

Comic Review: Karnak.

With Marvel's largest crossover in history winding to a close, the next month sees a whole range of new books, comprised of both returning series and brand new names. In this post Secret Wars universe, we're promised a change in the Marvel Universe as we know it, with new characters and new teams taking center stage.

Amid the obviously eye catching new titles like Wolverine and the various new Avengers books, one that may fly under the radar, or be overlooked entirely, is Karnak.

For those unfamiliar with the character, Karnak is one of the long term members of fringe superhero group The Inhumans, and although he has his dedicated fans, one often overshadowed by bigger and more exciting members of the group like Black Bolt, the Inhuman king who can crumble mountains with a whisper,  or Medusa, with her prehensile hair and cold as ice royal conduct.
Karnak takes the role of adviser to the Inhuman royal family, and although he has no real powers as we know them, he is possessed of the preternatural ability to find the weaknesses, both literal and existential, in all things. A subtle talent, but one the right writer can work magic with.

Fortunately, Karnak has been placed in the hands of one of the comic industries most significantly gifted writers, Essex-born Warren Ellis. A veteran writer perhaps best known to comic fans for creating science fiction classic Transmetropolitan and genre bending superhero title The Authority, Ellis is known for mature themes, gritty characters both humorous and horrific, and presenting the audience with a view of our own world through some very cracked lenses.

Ellis's Karnak begins with the titular character in seclusion in a monastery of his own making, when he is dragged from his peaceful contemplation by agents of SHIELD seeking his skills in the matter of a kidnapped Inhuman child. Ellis's token commentary on society as we know it is clear right from point one, as we find that Inhumans, while recognized by the government, aren't protected by the same rights as 'normal' citizens, and Karnak is employed as an independent agent, operating outside the rules of SHIELD to track down the child that no one else is caring to find.

The dialogue is sharp, intelligent, and a joy to read. The potential plot may only be in its infancy, but it's gripping from the get-go, and Karnak's personality is clearly defined in every scene. A man of deep thoughtfulness, sardonic humor, and intense bitterness. Karnak refers to his unique perception as a curse, being profoundly aware of the flaws in all things, even that which is wonderful and beautiful. To Karnak, nothing can be perfect, as the flaws are the first thing he sees.
The art is nothing short of steller as well, Gerardo Zaffino's distinct style fitting the gritty theme perfectly, with rough edges and deep shadows, and Karnak himself being redesigned into a  significantly less 'cartoony' look from previous appearances. Zaffino is able to lend a feeling of movement and velocity to his art that is wonderfully demonstrative of Karnak's incredible precision.

Of everything I've picked up from Marvel's new season of books, Karnak is the one I was interested to read the least, yet found myself enjoying the most. It's a poignant reminder that a character previously of little to no interest, in the right hands can become something startlingly exciting. 

10 Crap Supervillains No Hero Ever Wanted to Fight

Not everyone can be Darkseid. Not every mutation can create the Juggernaut or Apocalypse. There's just too many heroes going around for every one of them to have an arch-nemesis like Ultron or The Green Goblin.

That's why there's these guys. The villains no hero ever wanted to have in their rogues gallery. The ones even the lowest ranking Avenger would leave out of their tales of triumph at Tony Stark's next mixer.

1. Dansen Macabre

This feisty young lady first appeared in a Marvel Team up starring Spider-Man and Werewolf. This disciple of a Nepalese cult devoted to Kali (incorrectly labeled as the Goddess of Death) pirouettes around stark naked but for some conveniently located streamers of black energy while boasting some very poorly explained powers, like being able to not be noticed unless she wants to be (wrong outfit for subtlety, love), and then, on the polar opposite of the scale, being able to hypnotize anyone who watches her dance. Apparently she can kill people with her dancing too, but we never see that.

Villains based on the performing arts are understandably interesting. Take Clayface for example; the passion and obsession of an actor makes a great villainous concept. The beauty and precision of a dancer is just as exciting, and that's why Marvel already have a villain who is a dancer; she's called Spiral, and she is AWESOME. You don't see Spiral prancing around in the buff trying to get the attention of a second rate hero team like the Midnight Sons.

So much more could have been done with a character inspired by the most complex of Hindu deities. Although she did turn up again recently in Marvel Zombies, poor Dansen Macabre has gone the way of most dances of the 80's. Into obscurity.

2. Mighty Endowed

Yeah, you read that right. Nina Dowd was a talented (but plain) archaeologist working on the dig of her career, and upon discovery of a mysterious relic from an ancient civilization, she just couldn't resist reaching out to touch it. The magic of the object transformed the woman into a supervillain of unique and terrible dimensions. When Young Justice turned up to battle her, they had no idea they would be confronted with the Mighty Endowed.

You guessed it, she's got magic tits.

Dowd was transformed into a sexy cat-like woman, bearing the most powerful breasts in comic book history. Too great in scope and magnificence to ever appear on the page, they emit a blazing strobe light that can hypnotize and control minds with but a single glance, or just plain freak people out. Young Justice brace themselves for the fight of their lives against the fearsome Endowed, only to have her upper body weight drag her over to lie helplessly on the floor, until she's dragged away and imprisoned.

The craziest part is, the bicycle-like object she touched is revealed to be of Apokoliptic origin, belonging to the New Gods, and actually a big part of DC universe lore. What's next for the Mighty Endowed? Think of the plot opportunities! Kryptonite pasties! The ultimate chest-off against Power Girl!

3. Crazy Quilt

There was a time when all it took to be a Batman villain was a really dodgy bit of tailoring. None more so were guilty of this most heinous of crimes than the malevolent Crazy Quilt.

A throwback from forgotten comic Boy Commandos, Crazy Quilt would reappear to terrorize Gotham City. Now Crazy Quilt actually has a fairly interesting backstory, unlike most of these losers. A skilled painter with many dark connections to the criminal underworld, Crazy Quilt left clues to heists in his paintings (sixty years before the Da Vinci Code, people!). When betrayed and shot by a fellow criminal, Crazy Quilt's eyesight is irreparably altered to see nothing but blindingly bright colours all the time, like being stuck in Saturday morning television forever.

Naturally, becoming Crazy Quilt and engaging in a colour based crime spree, he creates a helmet that blazes bright colours and....hypnotizes. Oh. That again. Also, sometimes he fires lasers.

Crazy Quilt would return to menace Batman and Robin on many occasions in the Golden Age, but was thankfully mostly forgotten about by the time a more fashionable metal came around. 

4. The Orb

The Residents were popular in the seventies, that much is clear. This eye catching chap was a Ghost Rider villain who appeared to be halfway between Evil Knievel and a Masters of the Universe action figure. Disfigured in an accident during a motorcycle race against Ghost Rider's old mentor, Drake Shannon was left horribly scarred and burning for revenge. He was then given his signature great big Eyeball helmet for NO CLEAR REASON by They Who Wield Power with which to retake the traveling motorcycle show he once part owned. And he occasionally took part in some petty larceny when someone remembered him enough to use him. The Orb thinks big.

As for the powers of the dreaded Orb? ...Hypnosis. How groundbreaking. Oh and sometimes.... he fired lasers. Again.

Let's face it, the Orb just can't compete. I'd take a villain with a great rack over a big eye anytime.

NEWS! The Orb has stepped up his game with a major new appearance in a Marvel Universe crossover event in recent times. Not to spoil anything, but it's the event with the great big eye on the cover of every issue. What's next? Mighty Endowed partners with Darkseid? Crazy Quilt confirmed main antagonist in Arkham Knight? The possibilities are endless!

5. Stiltman

It generally takes some examples of truly exceptional level talents to be a superhuman. We're usually talking world class Engineer, Technician, Athlete, etc. No one who is just kinda good at their Tech career becomes Iron Man. Elektra didn't get a B in gymnastics. Wilbur Day was the guy who just didn't quite excel in supervillain school. When he stole advanced designs to construct that stupid ass metal outfit I'm sure he was damn proud of himself and all, and that's good. But when your name, and the main feature of your ability deals with having long legs that go up and down, you aren't going to be leading the masters of Evil anytime soon.

Now go take a look at Stiltman's Wikipedia page. 'Competent Engineer and Inventor'. Yeah, so was the smart kid in high school shop class. 'Moderately Talented disguise artist'. I could better than that after my first year in Drama school. And this loser goes around acting like he's on the same level as Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo.

They'd take one look at his resume over at Stark Industries and the best job he'd get offered would be cleaning up Hulk poo.

Stiltman and his amazingly long legs would commit robberies of very high places. Occasionally tangling with the likes of Daredevil. He turned up a lot over the years somehow, battling a variety of heroes who foiled his nefariously tall schemes. Until of course he tangled with the Punisher, who showed Stiltman what was what and shot him in the face, and that was the story of Stiltman. You could say... it was a tall tale.

6. Mad Mod

Now if being British was a superpower, I would be Doomsday. I British way better in a more British way than most other British people could hope to dream of. Mad Mod, on the other hand, took it to the next level. Mad Mod made a villain out of Anglophilia.

A Teen Titans villain whose ENTIRE deal was being British, Mad Mod was an artsy fashion designer with a Beatles haircut who made a criminal career out of importing designer clothes. Hardly Lex Luthor stuff there, I know, but when you're English you just do everything more stylishly. Mad Mod didn't really have any powers to speak of. But hey, at least he isn't trying to hypnotize anybody.

Mad Mod would go on to such nefarious schemes as blagging the Crown Jewels, and putting the letter U in more words than those pesky Americans would.

Turning up again years down the line, Mad Mod would return in the animated Teen Titans series, voiced by British person Malcolm McDowell. This incarnation of the Mod was a crazed inventor, and a brilliant way for the showrunners to turn everything he did into a reference to British pop culture, with homages to everything from Monty Python to Yellow Submarine.

Interestingly enough, England might be just about the only country you could base an entire character around gross stereotypes of, and it still doesn't seem racist for some reason. I mean, if you made a Mexican villain a taco eating luchador with pet chickens...that would just be irresponsibly racist. Wouldn't it?

7. Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Man

Just look at that name. Whoever created this guy had all the chances in the world to come up with a better name. This was the 60's. The comic book world hadn't taken all the names yet. There was room for great, memorable names still to be had! But no. Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Man stood tall in the face of his enemies, the Doom Patrol.

A Swedish scientist who fell into a vat of amino acids, AVMM, as he shall now be referred to, gained the amazing ability to transfigure any part of his body into parts of animals, minerals, or indeed vegetables.

There really isn't that much more to say about this guy, other than if you're taking a stroll down the street one day, just looking to fight crime in a nice peaceful way, and a villain comes screaming at you down the street hopping on the legs of an Alpaca with a parsnip for a head and waving arms made out of collard greens and the Starship Enterprise, he doesn't need to have AVMM emblazoned on his shirt for you to know just who you're dealing with. 

That really has to be one of the worst names in comic book history.

Proteor, Shapemaster, He could've been 'The Major General', even. Doom Patrol is lucky a plucky little rip off turned into the X-Men, or it would just have nothing to show for itself.

8. The Terrible Trio

We all know DC's Terrible Trio. Three everyday criminals who wore zoot suits and animal masks and end up looking like something you'd find when you've spent too long on Google Earth. They menaced Batman from now and then, and were generally dated as hell. But at least they had a gimmick, shallow as it may have been. The Terrible Trio I've picked for this list is another Terrible Trio altogether. One so awful that it takes all three of them to fill one spot on this list.

Let me take you back to the 60's, where villains needed catchy names and the most random and seemingly useless powers in the history of comic books. Doctor Doom assembled a fearsome team of three plucky criminals from the streets, and gave them superpowers loosely themed on them. It really was that simple in those days.

The aptly named Terrible Trio consisted of Bull Brogin, who was quite strong. Yogi Dakor, who has every racist Indian Yogi stereotype under the sun at his disposal, including fire invulnerability, snake charming, and riding a flying carpet, and of course Handsome Harry, who possesses the amazing power of super hearing. Super hearing, yes. For all the hearing based super villainy.

These losers would battle the Fantastic Four, with little measure of success. Because lets face it, being a bit strong ain't gonna help your ass against the Thing, and being invulnerable to Johnny Storm's flames still ain't gonna help your ass against the Thing. In a moment of truly genre defining trickery, they use an asbestos blanket against the human torch. That's the equivalent of going up against Ice Man armed with one of those heated blankets for joint pain or trying to battle Magneto wearing a rubber wetsuit.

In the years gone by, the Terrible trio have been lost to time and better super villains. Ones who have powers extending beyond the ability piss off an entire ethnic group or to overhear your neighbors having sex at 2am. 

9. Leap Frog

Now Stan Lee created a lot of characters in his time. Dozens of the greats of the comic book universe sprung from the brow of Stan the Man. Of course, you can't create as many characters as he did without producing a fair number of absolutely shite ones along the way as well.

Leap-Frog (who was French, obviously) dressed like a giant frog, with green flippers, googly eyes and all, and bounced around committing petty larceny with his amazing power of jumping.

That really is all there is to it. A goofy as fuck outfit with springs on the soles of his feet.

His backstory involved him being a designer of novelty goods, driven mad with the tiresome repetition of his job. Because everyone who works at Mattel goes out and builds a giant flaming death steed when work on the My Little Pony line gets boring. He probably had an amphibian based catchphrase to match, but I just can't be bothered to read enough old 70's Daredevil books to find it.

Leap Frog would menace Daredevil for a brief time, before retiring from the crime game.

You'd think a villain so awkward would have the good graces to stay forgotten, but no. Years later a second soul took up the proud mantle of Leap-Frog to battle Daredevil once more, only to be chucked off a building into a trash compactor in his first appearance. Stay dead that Leap-Frog? No sir! The resurrected Leaping terror would return Yet AGAIN to battle the Avengers, and be unceremoniously mullered by Wolverine. Because in French chess, Canadian trumps Frog person.

10. Metal Master

You know what I love? Characters that are just other characters, only crap. Stan the Man and his trusty pal Steve Ditko struck again when they created Metal Master. Practically the defining example of suffering other-better-character-related-crapness, and the worst part is, he came before his significantly more powerful and momentously popular successor, Magneto.

Metal Master has control over metal. Kinda like how Magneto has control over magnetism. But of course magnetism has a million other uses besides, suddenly making the ability to reform metal molecules less impressive. Sure, Metal Master tangled with the Hulk, and messed some heroes up pretty bad in his time, but his character design was absolute arse, and his power was never explored or really defined. (His powers wouldn't work on ALL metals, y'see.) I'm sure Stan and Steve were chuffed with themselves for thinking him up at the time, until Stan and Jack Kirby got together later that year and decided to make the same character, only a million times better, with a thrilling back story and a provocative psychological drive, who would go on decades later to be voted IGN's greatest comic book villain of ALL TIME. Yeah, don't seem to cool now do you Metal Master?

In summary, just like real life, the worlds of comic books are filled with wonderful characters, and just as many absolutely horrible ones we never wanted to meet in the first place. You won't thrill at the sight of Leap-Frog on the cover of the new issue of Thor, no one will wait with baited breath to see who they cast as Stiltman in Avengers: Age of the Silly Stilt Bastard, and you don't want The Mighty Endowed in your Heroclix army (Unless she's anatomically correct, maybe).

Think you can dig up a worse villain? By all means, let me know... These losers, the Z-listers lurking at the back of the supervillainy class will always have have a very special place in our hearts.

Movie Review: Fantastic Four.

I have never been a big fan of the Fantastic Four.
In my opinion, they're the product of an older era of the superhero concept, one that has moved on in leaps and bounds in the sixty-odd years since the original Marvel team first appeared. They've tried to give a fresh spin to the familiar characters of Mr Fantastic, Johnny and Sue Storm, and The Thing so many times you would think they'd be unrecognizable, but nothing ever really seems to change with these guys.

The same seems to be true every time they cross to a new media. Sure, they had a popular cartoon in the 90's, but no one liked it as much as the X-Men cartoon, and the last two Fantastic Four film adaptations were coughed up among other, more successful comic movies and were swiftly forgotten. Did we really need another reboot of the team that just keeps getting left behind?

For the first hour of the brand new, imaginatively titled 'Fantastic Four', you could have fooled me that we did. We follow the misadventures of a young Reed Richards, a genius scientific prodigy building his teleportation device in his father's garage with the help of his friend Ben, and it's good cinema all the way. We watch their friendship grow as they work on Reed's device in his high school science fair, and then be tested as Reed is recruited by the project head of a secret government test site to finish ironing out the kinks in their grand design.

All this is good stuff. The character work is strong, the acting is enjoyable. The characters aren't a far stretch from what we know and expect. The project lead's two children, the frosty and detail oriented Sue Storm, and her cocky street racing brother Johnny, join Reed on his development of the teleportation device that will save mankind from itself. Also working on the project is the foreign wild-card Victor Von Doom, an outspoken youth with just as much genius as Reed, but dangerous personality quirks. At least, this is what we're told about Victor, from the point of view of the government suit who takes the role of the film's villain through 90% of the runtime.

The Victor we actually see isn't all that bad at all. He's just a confident, unforgiving young man who considers the ruling cliche of America unacceptable. Which isn't villainous at all, considering the proof we see of the nefarious intentions of these same government characters.

Together, the soon to become Fantastic foursome and Victor perfect the project, and in a twist of drunken college intent, decide to send themselves through the teleporter before some astronaut can take all the glory. Instead of it being the four we expect who get to travel to the alternate world, however,  they leave Sue Storm behind and drag along Ben Grimm, which seemed not particularly sensible, but friendship IS magic after all.

The excursion doesn't go as planned, and while Sue watches helplessly from her monitors back on Earth, Victor plunges his hand into a pool of living energy and sets off an earthquake that threatens to kill them all. Reed, Johnny and Grimm are thrown back through the teleporter (each with fitting and appropriate twists and malfunctions that decide their powers) and back to Earth to face the results of their mistake.

We see a glimpse of them afterwards, the four just beginning to show signs of their powers, before we are treated to the screen that, in my opinion, completely ruined the movie. A fade to black with the words: 1 year later.

Instead of following the characters we've seen for the whole film, and watch them experience their new powers, with all the joy and horror that would come with it, the film just skips it all entirely to take us to a future where they have already all mastered their abilities. We don't get to see Johnny Storm realize he can fly and throw fireballs, we don't get to see Sue learn to control her invisibility or develop her force fields, we don't get a single scene with poor old Ben Grimm realizing what he has become as he looks down at himself. All the character development up to this point is essentially wasted, and what should have been the most dramatic, intense part of the movie, is skipped completely.

From here, the film takes a roller coaster spiral downwards into the finale. No time is wasted on characters anymore, it's just government conspiracy and half-hearted arguments between the characters we don't really know anymore.

The finale rushes in like a truck, and after a second attempt to send travelers to the alternate world, Victor is back on the scene and becomes the movie's instant villain, with little to no real reason or drive. He's back, he wants to destroy everything, and the Fantastic Four must stop him.

The problem here is that we haven't seen these characters grow together, we haven't seen moments of reprieve from the training, or scenes of friendship or the characters just being themselves. From what we gather from the choppy sequences post time skip, they've barely even seen each other in a year. This doesn't feel like a team at all, as much as four characters who're just conveniently together in time to fight the bad guy. Which they do, and in under five minutes have defeated and saved the world.

The whole thing is over so fast and so effortlessly that Doom feels entirely like an afterthought instead of the great villain he's meant to be. The final battle is almost a joke, it's over so quick, not to mention they actually have a moment where Reed stretches out one of his arms to box Doom in the face, complete with comedy elastic noise, and expect us still to be taking the fight seriously.

It all started out so good, and it's such a shame that after the first act, the film just became a trial in the expected. There's no dynamic between our heroes, which is incredibly noticeable in the awkward scenes between Reed and Ben towards the end of the film, and there's not even any effort to develop the heavily hinted at love triangle with Reed/Sue/Doom that should have been so important. With its short run time, it seems to be missing its entire second act altogether.

The worst part is, for a superhero team that above all else and all others is about family, friendship and being close with one another, the Fantastic Four feels like less of a team than any other superhero movie I've ever seen. By the finale they seem to have no real connection, no genuine friendships, and the scene where they are meant to be taking friendly shots at each other just feels like they are being intentionally cruel to one another.

If the film could have continued with the fun and cleverness that it started with, there would be something here. What we have here instead, is a film that will be doing a very fine Invisible Woman impression at the box office.

Movie Review: Age of Ultron

When I was 7, my dad gave me a pile of his old comics from when he was a kid. I had Captain Britain, The Defenders, and Dan Dare amongst many others, and I had a lot of favorites. The character that leapt off the page at me though, the character that stuck with me ever since; was the philosophical, maniacal robotic arch nemesis of the Avengers, Ultron.

You can imagine how excited I was when Ultron was revealed as the antagonist in the sequel to Marvel’s immensely successful The Avengers. When his actor was revealed as James Spader, with his gravelly southern voice, I was at first skeptical. I was expecting the announcement to be of an actor with a famously recognizable voice, like Malcolm McDowell.

The moment I saw that first trailer, all my fears were put to rest. Spader’s commanding drawl is so perfectly condescending, intellectually superior, even bored sounding, it fit the character wonderfully.

From that moment on, going into this one, I was excited.

I was not disappointed.

With every step forward into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, it feels more like the spirit of the comics. From the very beginning, we see the Avengers working together as a coordinated team battling their old enemies Hydra. It’s fluid, and fun and incredibly put together visually. Each member seems to have been developed since the last film, both in the way they function within the team, interacting with their fellow members, and how they act on a personal basis. We see a little more of everyone here, more personal scenes, more fight scenes, more everything.

Most of all, this is a character based movie. It’s wall to wall action, sure, but everyone has their moment of drama, and the dialogue is well written for pretty much every personality involved. It isn’t just Iron Man starring the Avengers anymore, every character has screen time on and off the field of combat. 

Not an easy feat, considering they are juggling five popular main characters, and some major satellite characters too. While Downey Jr’s Stark is still the funniest character in the film, with comebacks and dialogue so sharp and well delivered it almost seems improvised, there’s also great moments from the supporting cast, Don Cheadle’s War Machine standing out in his scenes by far. Conspicuously absent amongst the ensemble are fan favorites (and eternal girlbait) Agent Coulson and Loki, however.

There’s great scenes of casual interplay between the Avengers. The snappy dialogue in hectic combat is even better in casual situations, with great scenes of macho competition, honest flirtation, and scientific ambition. It’s difficult not to love each of the Avengers, with even the less focal ones getting great scenes here.

No time is wasted on early exposition, or introducing characters we already know. The setup is here and ready from point one, and it doesn’t take long for the main plot to kick in after the brilliant opening scene. During a celebratory party in the Avenger’s tower, the first form of the titular villain shows himself. 

At first I was taken aback by the frank quirkiness of Ultron’s dialogue. There’s no technobabble or stereotypical ‘robot character’ dialogue, he’s very human. He’s cocky, even funny. I realized that the character, a product of alien technology mixed with Tony Stark’s automated Iron Army program, has taken on some of Stark’s personality traits, and shares his cynical, comical side. It works. Ultron is an enjoyable villain to watch, he talks like Stark, with his constant megalomania and superiority turned up to eleven. His first scene, analyzing the simple flaws in the existence of the world as we see it, is just brilliant.

By instantaneous access to all the worlds information, Ultron goes from birth to master plan in a matter of minutes, so it all kicks off pretty soon from there on, with a globetrotting series of events pursuing Ultron across the world. The story is kinetic, never staying in one place for long. The Avengers are dragged through a series of trials, facing more new enemies in the Maximoff twins, not named as such here but better known to comic fans as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. These two are more enjoyable than I expected, having never been a fan of either before. With some acceptable neutral Slavic accents, they form the basis of Ultron’s cadre of main antagonists. Quicksilver snatching arrows out of the air with his super speed and Scarlet Witch bending the minds of our heroes to show them their worst fears. With a team of heroes as powerful as the Avengers, turning them against one another has long been the classic way to deliver a challenge.

Quicksilver’s inclusion will inevitably be compared to the characters recent appearance in X-Men: Days of Future past, and I have to say, regardless of some fun visual gags, he isn’t half as exciting here. In DOFP, we saw incredible use of the characters super speed in a variety of ways, Age of Ultron’s Quicksilver is just not up to that standard, although he is well performed and enjoyable to watch.

The twin’s inevitable heel/face turn is one of the movies short order points, in my opinion, a little brief, and they are awfully quick to ally with a character that was revealed in a prior monologue to be the source of a lifetime of constant fear and oppression for the two. Also, without the twins as sidekicks, Ultron is the lone antagonist for most of the films runtime, and as great a villain as he is, there’s something video-gamey about the Avengers battling an endless supply of identical robot drones. These large scale battle scenes, all inclusive of almost every character, are a visual masterpiece, certainly, but they don’t have the urgency or intensity necessary in a lot of the situations. We know any member of the Avengers will defeat a hundred of these enemies in a scene like this, so there’s no genuine threat there. The real joy in the films battle scenes come from other sources, like the brilliant punch up between a pissed off Hulk and the long awaited Iron Man Hulk-Buster armour. This one is fantastic. Hulk is his absolute finest here, made genuinely scary by showing us that he isn’t just the strongest thing on the battlefield, but that he’s fast too. Iron Man attempting to stop the rampaging green menace whilst simultaneously trying to protect the undefended city and the populace around them is just great, and will be the main event of the film for many viewers.

The Hulk has a lot of character development here, and along with Black Widow and Hawkeye, forms the Avengers that we see a much more intimate side of. An emerging romance and personal secrets  are introduced that we hadn’t previously seen, and it serves to remind there’s a lot more going on here than just saving the world. 

Speaking of which, the exact peril the world is in, isn’t as clear as it perhaps could have been. Exactly what Ultron’s plan was I felt wasn’t all that obvious until the films finale. It feels at times like the storyline is moving to a time limit we aren’t really seeing. It doesn’t make it any less fun, but the real feeling of tension generated by threat through the second act just wasn’t there.

The film’s final act introduces a major hero in the form of one of the comic’s most mysterious, enigmatic characters. If you’ve made it this far without knowing who that is, I don’t want to spoil it for you. I’ll say he’s played beautifully, with just the right edge of childlike wonder and enlightened gravity that the character needs, by a brilliant British actor who has long deserved a role so big. One perfectly played moment in his first scene had the whole audience cheering, and you’ll know it when you see it.

Age of Ultron may not be the epic entry in the MCU it could have been. It serves to develop characters and move the whole story forward rather than end anything or bring it all together, but it’s sharply written, well put together, and has some truly enjoyable performances by characters both old and new. There’s so much going on in the MCU, with developments in this film leading to at least 4 separate future films, and it’s hard not to want to get involved in all of them. It’s just like reading the comics, you can’t read only one, there's too much fun to be had by diving right into the whole world.