First of all, I'd like to say how sad the passing of Darren McGavin and Don Knotts. I know everyone has their favorite memories of these actors, but I will always remember them most for A Christmas Story and The Incredible Mr. Limpet respectively.
On a happier note, two of my favorite Whedonverse alumni celebrated birthdays in the past week. Alexis Denisof celebrated his 40th birthday on February 25. (I had no idea he was that old. Not that 40 is old, just older than I thought he was.) And Adam Baldwin celebrated his 44th birthday on February 27th.
Speaking of Adam Baldwin, he's going to appear on Bones on March 15. Hopefully either Veronica Mars or Lost will be a repeat that night so I get to see it. Fortunately for David Boreanaz, Adam will be playing a fellow FBI agent and not an evil, invulnerable lawyer. I'm sure he will still be badass though. He's also been cast in a new pilot for ABC, and posted on the official Firefly board. He knows from good creative teams, so I have high hopes. His costar is Taye Diggs. Now, I love Taye Diggs, but I have to question having the 5'10" actor (and frankly, I didn't even think he was that tall) star opposite the 6'4" Adam Baldwin. I guess he's going to be standing on a lot of boxes. But they are both really talented, not to mention attractive, so I hope the pilot gets picked up and is really good. Either one of them on their own would get me to at least give a show a chance, so the two of them definitely puts it into must see TV territory.
And now on to some commentary...
Justice League Unlimited: Do you know why I was disappointed in this episode? It's because normally JLU is so good at making me immediately love, or at least really interested in, characters that I had no prior knowledge of. Patriot Act just didn't pull that off. First of all, Stargirl already annoyed me the first time we saw her this season, in that episode wit Supergirl. I just don't like the teeny bopper heroes. They are too much like the teeny bopper starlets. And Vigilante's main appeal is still the fact that he is voiced by Nathan Fillion (who still isn't the huge movie star he deserves to be), but Shining Knight was fairly interesting. I loved their conversation at the beginning about Dirty Harry. Green Arrow was also in this episode, and frankly, I didn't think there was enough of him. And why is Green Arrow's former sidekick named Speedy? What does speed have to do with archery? And did he seem kind of gay to anyone else? Mostly, I think the biggest flaw was that despite all the obvious heroism of the characters, the message that these characters deserve as much respect as the like of Superman even though they don't have powers and aren't as well known kind of got lost in the fact that they got their asses saved by a little old lady.
Astonishing X-Men #13: Oh, how I have missed this book. Joss Whedon and John Cassaday totally delivered too. It was obvious that Joss took note of fan criticism that the "Dangerous" arc didn't have enough character stuff. This was chock full of character stuff. I hope people who were angry with Joss for hitting the reset button on Emma Frost's evilness. I think it this issue made it pretty clear that helping the new Hellfire Club isn't really something she has much of a choice in. Personally, I'm a bit sick of the trend of making murderers good guys without them actually having to pay for their crimes, so I didn't care one way or another. I think the revelations regarding her character are interesting. Also, if that end shot wasn't the first time she wore Scott's "favorite outfit" for him, then I finally understand that relationship. I love Cyclops, but when it comes to Jean, he's a pretty sick freak. As for the Hellfire Club and Cassandra Nova, I'm going to have to do some research on them. The Hellfire Club was a bit before my time and the Cassandra Nova popped up while I was in college and not reading comics. But IGN Comics has a good article to help educate on the whole thing. And there is always Wikipedia. My favorite part of the issue was the Kitty and Piotr stuff. While I was familiar with the characters, I was not really familiar with their romantic relationship prior to the first 12 issues of Astonishing X-Men, but Joss Whedon got me so invested in it. You can't help but root for them to get together. I was totally surprised by how happy I was when he kissed her. I guess I now have to add them to the short list of fictional characters that I "ship." Sadly, it's a relationship being written by Joss Whedon, so you know the happiness can't last. Now that they are back together, Kitty will probably get shot.
Spider-Man: Finally, we turn to Spider-Man and his many wardrobe issues. In the same week that it is revealed that Spider-Man will be wearing the black costume in the third film, Spidey's new costume made its debut in Amazing Spider-Man #529. As far as the black costume goes, I have had several conversations on the issue at this point, and the overall consensus seems to be that the costume in the teaser poster, which is pretty much his normal costume only black, is not actually the costume he will be wearing in the movie. I have to say that I agree with this. I can't imagine that they would really give away what the symbiote costume will actually look like so early, especially given the fact that they haven't even confirmed that Venom will be appearing in the film yet.
The new costume in the comic books is far more troubling, if only because we know that it is the one we are going to be stuck with. It is quite simply put, hideous. And the less said about the legs it apparently sports the better. I was holding out hope that there would be a good plot driven reason for the new costume, but there really wasn't. And between putting him in Iron Man's colors and Tony Stark asking him to be his right hand man, it almost seems like Spider-Man is being turned into Iron Man's sidekick, or at least his lackey. Also, given the sheer number of costumed heroes in New York City, would a bunch of crooks necessarily recognize Spider-Man if he showed up in a completely different costume that wasn't even the same colors? I don't think they would.
On a happier note, two of my favorite Whedonverse alumni celebrated birthdays in the past week. Alexis Denisof celebrated his 40th birthday on February 25. (I had no idea he was that old. Not that 40 is old, just older than I thought he was.) And Adam Baldwin celebrated his 44th birthday on February 27th.
Speaking of Adam Baldwin, he's going to appear on Bones on March 15. Hopefully either Veronica Mars or Lost will be a repeat that night so I get to see it. Fortunately for David Boreanaz, Adam will be playing a fellow FBI agent and not an evil, invulnerable lawyer. I'm sure he will still be badass though. He's also been cast in a new pilot for ABC, and posted on the official Firefly board. He knows from good creative teams, so I have high hopes. His costar is Taye Diggs. Now, I love Taye Diggs, but I have to question having the 5'10" actor (and frankly, I didn't even think he was that tall) star opposite the 6'4" Adam Baldwin. I guess he's going to be standing on a lot of boxes. But they are both really talented, not to mention attractive, so I hope the pilot gets picked up and is really good. Either one of them on their own would get me to at least give a show a chance, so the two of them definitely puts it into must see TV territory.
And now on to some commentary...
Justice League Unlimited: Do you know why I was disappointed in this episode? It's because normally JLU is so good at making me immediately love, or at least really interested in, characters that I had no prior knowledge of. Patriot Act just didn't pull that off. First of all, Stargirl already annoyed me the first time we saw her this season, in that episode wit Supergirl. I just don't like the teeny bopper heroes. They are too much like the teeny bopper starlets. And Vigilante's main appeal is still the fact that he is voiced by Nathan Fillion (who still isn't the huge movie star he deserves to be), but Shining Knight was fairly interesting. I loved their conversation at the beginning about Dirty Harry. Green Arrow was also in this episode, and frankly, I didn't think there was enough of him. And why is Green Arrow's former sidekick named Speedy? What does speed have to do with archery? And did he seem kind of gay to anyone else? Mostly, I think the biggest flaw was that despite all the obvious heroism of the characters, the message that these characters deserve as much respect as the like of Superman even though they don't have powers and aren't as well known kind of got lost in the fact that they got their asses saved by a little old lady.
Astonishing X-Men #13: Oh, how I have missed this book. Joss Whedon and John Cassaday totally delivered too. It was obvious that Joss took note of fan criticism that the "Dangerous" arc didn't have enough character stuff. This was chock full of character stuff. I hope people who were angry with Joss for hitting the reset button on Emma Frost's evilness. I think it this issue made it pretty clear that helping the new Hellfire Club isn't really something she has much of a choice in. Personally, I'm a bit sick of the trend of making murderers good guys without them actually having to pay for their crimes, so I didn't care one way or another. I think the revelations regarding her character are interesting. Also, if that end shot wasn't the first time she wore Scott's "favorite outfit" for him, then I finally understand that relationship. I love Cyclops, but when it comes to Jean, he's a pretty sick freak. As for the Hellfire Club and Cassandra Nova, I'm going to have to do some research on them. The Hellfire Club was a bit before my time and the Cassandra Nova popped up while I was in college and not reading comics. But IGN Comics has a good article to help educate on the whole thing. And there is always Wikipedia. My favorite part of the issue was the Kitty and Piotr stuff. While I was familiar with the characters, I was not really familiar with their romantic relationship prior to the first 12 issues of Astonishing X-Men, but Joss Whedon got me so invested in it. You can't help but root for them to get together. I was totally surprised by how happy I was when he kissed her. I guess I now have to add them to the short list of fictional characters that I "ship." Sadly, it's a relationship being written by Joss Whedon, so you know the happiness can't last. Now that they are back together, Kitty will probably get shot.
Spider-Man: Finally, we turn to Spider-Man and his many wardrobe issues. In the same week that it is revealed that Spider-Man will be wearing the black costume in the third film, Spidey's new costume made its debut in Amazing Spider-Man #529. As far as the black costume goes, I have had several conversations on the issue at this point, and the overall consensus seems to be that the costume in the teaser poster, which is pretty much his normal costume only black, is not actually the costume he will be wearing in the movie. I have to say that I agree with this. I can't imagine that they would really give away what the symbiote costume will actually look like so early, especially given the fact that they haven't even confirmed that Venom will be appearing in the film yet.
The new costume in the comic books is far more troubling, if only because we know that it is the one we are going to be stuck with. It is quite simply put, hideous. And the less said about the legs it apparently sports the better. I was holding out hope that there would be a good plot driven reason for the new costume, but there really wasn't. And between putting him in Iron Man's colors and Tony Stark asking him to be his right hand man, it almost seems like Spider-Man is being turned into Iron Man's sidekick, or at least his lackey. Also, given the sheer number of costumed heroes in New York City, would a bunch of crooks necessarily recognize Spider-Man if he showed up in a completely different costume that wasn't even the same colors? I don't think they would.
2 comments:
re: Scott and Emma. Scott must NEED to be with a telepath (Jean, Betsy, Emma) at all times, because if not, he doesn't let anyone in. Co-dependent mutants: next Montel. But seriously, I'm glad he's busy paying the bills. Did you notice the Marvel calendar that juxtaposed Emma and Jean in the same month? That is just another reminder that Scott and Jean will always be.
re: Kitty and Piotr. They were very young and cute around the time Rogue joined the team in 1983. Kudos to Joss for making it work again.
re: Bones. Well, despite the plots, I love the banter and references. I was psyched to check out the Temperance Brennan novels because they take place in Montreal, but I am kinda disappointed even though there is a lot of quebecois goodness. No one's eaten poutine yet, though. Tempe is a divorced mother and recovering alcoholic. She is still a strong character, but she has lost some of her Roguish charm. Regardless, I'll be looking for Adam Baldwin March 15!
Oh, I should have known you like Bones because Temperance Brennan reminds you of Rogue. I totally didn't pick up on that. *ashamed*
As far as Scott and Emma go, I don't know if it's so much about telepaths (though they all seem to get in his head and mess around with him there first). Betsy pretty much forced herself into his thoughts. With Emma, he was a willing participant, and then they started an actual relationship. But I remember back before the reveal that Colussus was the one that they were bringing back to life, they were trying to make everyone think it would be Jean. Cassaday made a comment when asked if Emma would somehow be involved with the resurrection (apparently Jean did something to hewr before she died -- no clue because I only started reading X-Men again because of Joss) that all the women Scott loves have a little Jean in them. Well, they didn't bring Jean back, but I guess Cassady wasn't lying. I'm trying to decide if having your girlfriend make herself look like your dead wife is more or less twisted than marrying a woman who looks exactly like your dead girlfriend. I guess when you're burdened with leading the X-Men when you don't really want to do it, and you're a pretty emotionally closed off guys to begin with, psychosis are going to develop.
Post a Comment