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Ben Grimm CONFIRMED for Fallout fan.

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Interesting and weighty opening portion of a Thing GN/miniseries by... well, take a look. It's a real barrel of monkeys. No action, no supervillains, leaning heavily on the sitcommish side of the FF, but with some real dark, depressing implications that aren't resolved due to the whole thing being incomplete. It's sort of like Curb Your Expectations with Ben Grimm as the main character. Worth a read.

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Here's a pretty lackluster bit. In an issue called 'The Last Molly Story,' an alternate-universe Tim Hunter (you know how it is) shows up at Molly's and is evil, so she decides to cut all ties with the real Tim, so I guess that's it for her. This late in the game, you think she'd realize that Tim acting like a weirdo serial killer means he's being impersonated or mind-controlled or something, rather than her first thought being that he's just decided to go to the Dark Side--I mean, this is pretty cape comic shit, and you'd think a more 'sophisticated' comic would avoid such melodrama.

I'm pretty sure she'll be back, just because this seems like a lousy place to leave a character and a relationship, but that just makes me feel like the comic is jerking me around by calling an issue 'The Last Molly Story.' You get a Spider-Man issue called 'The Night Gwen Stacy Died,' Gwen Stacy dies. I don't think it's too much to ask that Vertigo holds itself to the same standard.

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Spider-Man 3: Editor's Cut

This isn't a revelation one way or the other. It adds a brief scene with the Sandman and his family, while deleting the scene where Harry's butler tells him the truth about his father, making it so he just chooses to help Peter and MJ instead of having the truth about Norman dropped on his head like a load of bricks. (Man, remember when you could point out a giant plot hole in a movie, like Harry's butler never telling him that his father was the Green Goblin, and people would agree it was a plot hole instead of calling you a Nazi?)

So if you don't like the movie, you probably still won't like it, but if you did like it to begin with, this might make you like it a little more.I will say a few things that I noted this time around.

1. Okay, even as a certified Raimi lover, I can't defend the inexplicably British newscaster at the climax and how she basically narrates the movie for the vision impaired? Sandman is beating Peter to death and we cut to a news anchor going "Is this the end of Spider-Man?" Yes, that's the question, could you let us keep watching the movie so we find out? We can see what's going on. You don't need to point out.

2. Likewise, the bit at the climax where Jameson buys a camera off a little girl to capture this huge news story shouldn't work--it should be the worst kind of MCU bathos-in-the-midst-of-drama--but it's J.K. Simmons, so it works.

3. As spectacle, I still don't think this has been topped. When Harry and Peter team up as fight bros at the end, it's legitimately thrilling and something we hadn't seen before in a Spider-Man movie, and still haven't. In the MCU, we got what was supposed to be a Spider-Man Iron Man team-up movie and Tony just lectured Peter about being a crappy superhero. They never fought together or teamed up at all.

4. I think Peter figuring out that Venom is vulnerable to sonics and quickly using that at the climax is the one time in a Spider-Man movie where he actually uses his scientific knowhow. In the ASM movies, Gwen does all his thinking for him, and in the MCU, he has Tony's suit to do everything. Raimi, baby.

5. I do think the special effects can be iffy, even for the time. I remember Spider-Man 2 as having pretty untouchable effects, and this seems like it was more rushed. But the trade-off is that if you want Spidey action, this movie has a real steady supply of it. And even these days, Spider-Man's costume itself is a pretty unconvincing effect. I don't mind Spider-Man turning into a CGI effect in this to flip and dodge around in mid-air, but him being a CGI effect with a Tom Holland head when he's just standing around... bleh.

6. There are more contrived coincidences and "just go with it" plotting this time around. But I think if you're cool with the "baby mountain goats" scene in Spider-Man: Far From Home, you have no right to complain about Peter disco dancing. One is Peter acting weird within the realistic world of the movie, the other is the world being weird and making no sense because the movie is being a dumb comedy. But still, you've got

a. Flint Marko, the man who killed Uncle Ben, escaping and accidentally gaining superpowers.

b. Harry Osborn losing his memory after a fight with Spider-Man (and regaining it soon after).

c. The symbiote landing nearby Peter Parker during a meteor shower--and even if you want to say that it honed in on him somehow, you still have to explain it showing up right when Harry decided to go through with killing Peter and Flint getting his powers.

d. Eddie Brock being present as Peter gets rid of the symbiote.

e. Mary Jane believing Peter is in such danger from Harry Osborn that she'll break up with him on Harry's orders to save his life, instead of saying something like "Watch out! Harry has superpowers and he hates you and he's threatened to kill me!" (Okay, no technically a coincidence, but it is awful convenient.)

7. That said, look at this shot of Flint Marko picking up his shirt from right out of the comics.

Raimi is the only director who would not only dress Flint that way, but give his 'costume' this FUCK YEAH treatment. Marc Webb would probably put him in just, like, a black hoodie--because he's a bad guy!

8. Likewise, this seems about the last time we had real aerial duels and city-spanning action in a Spider-Man movie. When Harry and Peter fight, they go on top of rooftops and through alleyways. When Peter fights Venom, the fight goes from a giant web at the top of a construction site, to the girders, to the sand at the bottom, and everywhere inbetween. (And remember when Doc Ock and Spidey fought from the top of a clocktower onto a speeding train?) The fights in future movies are generally confined to single, easily greenscreened locations--I don't think Spider-Man and the Vulture ever really had a fight--and it feels so much less Spider-Man. Any superhero can have a fight on the top of a really tall building, but only Spider-Man can fight on, around, and on top of a speeding truck as it barrels through traffic.

8a. Speaking of, maybe they spent a ton more money on the security truck chase in Amazing Spider-Man 2 than they did here, with the bazillion crashing cars that Andrew Garfield blithely ignores, but man, Peter is so much more in-character here. He confronts Sandman, exchanges words with him (itself a sign that he's becoming arrogant and up his own ass), and then it's down to business. He doesn't do a stand-up comedy routine or call his girlfriend or remember what Denis Leary looked like while people are dying by the droves. Man, those ASM movies sucked so bad, they almost suck worse than the MCU movies.

9. As for the villains, it's a bit of a mixed bag, at least in terms of visuals. No one reaches the heights of Doc Ock, but no one is as dire-looking as Green Goblin either. Harry Osborn's "New Goblin" is bland, but functional. I like the twist of the skyboard instead of a more traditional Goblin Glider, but with his basic mask and bodysuit, he looks like he's going to play airsoft.

Of course, the same criticism will be made of the MCU's Taskmaster--'New Goblin' mostly just takes the mask off and talks to Peter face to face. Also, there's a part of my brain that can't help but wondering where he keeps all the pumpkin bombs and missiles, not to mention fuel and engine, on that tiny little rocketboard.

Sandman looks note-perfect, down to his actor even having a strong resemblance to his comic book counterpart, but then, how hard is it to get right a guy wearing a shirt? (I say, remembering that the MCU Luke Cage doesn't even wear a yellow T-shirt.)

And Venom is, well, Venom-y.

He's not really much bigger than Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, the webbing and spider-emblem on his costume is weirdly subdued, and he spends a lot of time unmasked to show off the very arguably miscast Topher Grace as Eddie. And between Grace's performance of Broke as a slithering reptile and everything else, Venom comes off as more of a screeching REEEE type villain instead of a guttural RRRRRRRRR! type villain. He's supposed to be brute force in contrast to Spider-Man's speed and agility, but instead he comes off as more of a gremlin. It's a bit of a bewildering choice. We know what a dark mirror to Peter Parker looks like--he's his own dark mirror for a lot of the movie. Shouldn't the Venom that's the ultimate manifestation of the symbiote be a completely different creature altogether, since the point of the movie is that vengeance is turning Peter into someone else? The Tom Hardy Venom is properly bulky in comparison.

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1. I gotta say, the kinda pretentious, 'we're so much better than cape comics' vibe doesn't really gibe with just how queasily insensitive this series can be. For instance, we get Tim's new stepbrother Cyril, who is clearly mentally ill/handicapped, and it's played for... laughs? Proving again that litfic is often just genre fiction with a stick up its ass about wanting to be seen as smarter than it really is.

2. What are they trying to imply about people who enjoy Xena: Warrior Princess? Because it seems like they're raking Cyril over the coals for being obsessed with hypermasculine stuff like G.I. Joe (and those awful cape comics), yet you'd think it'd be at least a little praiseworthy for someone to appreciate a camp action show about a strong female character with explicit queer undertones (if consuming any media can be said to be praiseworthy).

I'm just saying, it's a fun show, you stick-in-the-mud.

I mean, they could at least have him reference Captain America instead, although at the time, I believe Cap was being written by Mark Waid, and that run is pretty seminal. Now, certain Image Comics on the other hand...

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I'm just saying, if, say, Spider-Girl did a plot where a forty-year-old man drugged Mayday and made out with her without her consent, then her boyfriend found out and got "mad she didn't tell him," the fans would be calling that Jason Todd hotline and desperately trying to get the Joker to pick up the crowbar again.

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You know what I just realized Trek has been missing for a while?

The nonhuman character seeking to understand their humanity.

TOS has Spock. TNG had Data. DS9 had Odo (admittedly, a little bit of a reach). VOY had the Doctor and Seven. They’re a deuteragonist, usually has a deep and soulful relationship with the main character, since learning about humanity from the Captain gives them an obvious friendship. Such a bond elevates both characters and it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of Trek’s family-friendliness comes from a character like this understanding themselves and growing and ‘coming of age,’ in a non-patronizing and ‘adult’ context (i.e. not Wesley). I mean, if you were a kid and you were trying to figure yourself out, wouldn’t you like to see Data going through the same thing, while still making sense within the context of the show?

Now, while I would never advocate for Trek to repeat itself just for the sake of it--as you can see from the DS9 example, a Trek show can always work on its own terms--but it does feel a little like something’s missing without an archetype along these lines and with nothing to replace it (DS9 had a ton of politics and characterization, for instance; it wasn’t the usual ‘go out into space and run into Abe Lincoln’).

Yeah, ENT had T’Pol and Phlox, but they were both happy in their alienness. They didn’t particularly want to figure out humanity.Then in the Kelvin timeline, Spock isn’t that alien. From the first movie on, he’s in a relationship with Uhura that started off-screen. Expressing his emotions, for this incarnation of the character, mostly seems like a limit break he uses to do a finisher on the bad guys. And the less said about his ‘understanding death’ subplot in STID, the better.

DISCO, admittedly, I didn’t watch past the pilot because... I watched the pilot. It seems like they’re kinda doing this character with Burnham, who is now the protagonist, with the captain she relates to being a revolving door like the Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. Which--doesn’t quite work? Not only because it’s hard to get invested in a relationship that is replaced every season, but she’s kinda a weaksauce ‘outsider’. I guess she’s a human who follows the Vulcan philosophy, but she still understands humanity, right? Like, no one has to explain to her why people cry when they’re happy? Anyway, it just doesn’t seem like she’s as beloved a character as Spock or Data. I guess they had a Klingon masquerading as a human, which could’ve been an interesting take on the idea, but then they dropped that plot, so...

I don’t know! It just seems weird that these days, we have so much more knowledge and awareness of autism and Aspergers, who this character type really appeals to, and yet Trek isn’t doing anything with it. Kinda seems like a wasted opportunity.

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Leah, the succubus other woman in the current Tim Hunter love triangle, tries to rape-by-deception him by appearing as his girlfriend and, not even three pages later, he's forgiven her and is consensually kissing her. Blergh.

Dear genre fiction, please take the sexual abuse of men seriously, like, ever. Really shouldn't have to spell out that rape is wrong even if the victim is male and the offender is female. No love, Tumblr user scanned-goods.

Also, he was thirteen the last time I checked and she's a fallen angel, so literally as old as time, which feels

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Issue 28 of the Books of Magic brings us Cupid and Eros as, uh, a gangsta rapper and a fly girl for some reason. And man, the whole effete British would-be literary Vertigo subgenre does not go with a white person writing gangsta rappers.

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We stared at each other. She wasn’t my boss—and she wasn’t a vampire—and life with my mother had taught me not to intimidate easily, although this last took some effort, and my head was spinning even worse than … Uh. WHAT? She was TROLLING me.… This was strictly illegal: a violation of my personal rights, and anything an illegal fishing expedition found was automatically forfeit too, in theory, but once you know something you know it, don’t you? There is a license you can get to do a mind search under certain circumstances but there is a list of prior requirements as long as the global council’s charter—besides that, you need to be a magic handler particularly talented in etherfo interchange—and in practice there are only a few specialist cops and specialist lawyers who get one. And likely some SOFs: but if the goddess had the license, she was misusing it now. “HEY,” I said, and put up my arm, as if to ward off a physical blow. Trolling isn’t an exact science for even the best searcher, and the searchee has to hold still.

McKinley, Robin. Sunshine (pp. 347-348). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

File under 'nice, but older, author tries to invent a word for their sci-fi/fantasy concept and accidentally makes their story unintentionally hilarious for a bit.'

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So hey, did Jason Todd ever face any repercussions for the time he shot two cops in the head? They weren't even crooked cops, just ordinary police officers doing their job when Red Hood decided to ventilate their heads. You'd think Commissioner Gordon would have something to say about that.

Gordon: So, any luck bringing that Red Hood monster to justice?

Batman: Whaaaat? Nooooooo. Haven't seen him.

Gordon: What about that new member of the Batfamily who you call Red Hood and who looks exactly like the old Red Hood and uses guns just like the old Red Hood?

Batman: Him? Ha ha ha, he's the bad boy of the Batfamily!

Gordon: Those two men had wives, Batman. Families.

Batman: He's a problem child!

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With the new Wonder Woman trailer out, I've gotten to thinking about armor.

First, I always think it's a bit... toyetic when a superhero has an extra-special super costume for dealing with big huge emergencies. The Hulkbuster, the Iron Spider suit, now the Eagle Armor. Yeah, sometimes it's justified, but you really have to wonder why Wonder Woman, who has Superman level strength, would need to wear armor? I mean, I know she's slightly less strong than Superman, but her bad guys also suck slightly harder than Superman's rogues, so...

In fact, as I recall, Superman wearing armor is generally derided as being... Superman wearing armor. Even though him wearing Kryptonite-proof armor would cut his problems in half. Yeah, radiation would still get in through his head and hands, but like 95% less than when it's just going through spandex. Oh well, maybe it's too hard for him to wear lead armor under his street clothes. (If you were wondering whether the Nu52 suit blocked Kryptonite radiation--no, of course not, why do you ask?)

Tl;dr he's wearing armor! Now he's even more invincible!

Whatever. Oddly, the same doesn't seem to apply to Diana. People seem to like the Eagle Armor, even if to me it seems like a bit much.

But no one comes to a comics blog for fashion tips. I'm wearing jean shorts right now; what do I know?

Back in the day, I think the fondness for the eagle armor went hand in hand with a distaste for the iconic Wonder Woman 'bathing suit,' which admittedly does look cooler with a Greco-Roman skirt added to it as in the movies.

Though with the thigh-high boots and tiny miniskirt, there's a real zettai ryouiki element to the costume now. Silly movie, that's even more fetishistic! And, oddly enough, now Wonder Woman's female fanbase is fine with her running around in a costume that's as sexualized as ever. Her eagle armor even seems to have boobcups, which as with a lot of things these days, seems to swing between being horrendously offensive or something no one cares about.

And to swing back to Superman, it's weird how the armor issue is partly that Superman is supposed to be nice, but Wonder Woman's the one who's supposed to be preaching love and tolerance. And yet she's the one who constantly grabs a sword and gets into a head-chopping mood when things go south.

(Which, in a separate issue, I would blame on writers replacing Philipus with Artemis and generally not using her--she was cast with a pro athlete who had no lines in the movie--and then using Diana herself as "a violent if not bloodthirsty member of the Wonder family." It's like if Batman started being characterized as Jason Todd. Which he... kinda was in Batman V. Superman... Anyway, DC should use Artemis more. Wondy isn't like Batman with his five thousand sidekicks. She only has three or so. No excuse not to know them.)

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Hmm, this movie has a good plot and special effects, but the hero’s a total dillweed. If only there were some really cool, sympathetic, interesting character with the power of teleportation that we could focus a movie on.

JUST. LIKE. THAT.

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It's mean, but a part of me wants a revamped version of The Hiketeia to come out.

Batman: I know you swore to protect this girl, Wonder Woman, but she's a murderer. And murderers have to pay for their crimes!

Diana: What about Jason Todd?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Catwoman?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Huntress?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Two-Face?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Poison Ivy?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Harley Quinn?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Clayface?

Batman: That's different.

Diana: What about Killer Croc?

Batman: That's different.

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Uh, Death, you're as old as the universe and he's thirteen.