In today’s episode, we are joined by our friend Patrick, as we do a full blown comparison between the original 1981 version of Clash of the Titans, and the 2010 remake.
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Hello! I’m feeling ambitious today, so I’m starting a new column. (I also wrote a review of a comic called Wolf’s Head #4, you can read that next if you haven’t yet.)
So, if any of you are readers of my other column, This Week in Marvel Unlimited, you may have noticed that I usually say that I’m looking forward to reading something… someday. There’s a reason for that.
Back during the publicity push for Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel I thought it would be interesting to go read Marvel Comics’ crossover event “Secret Invasion.” That storyline dealt heavily with the Skrulls, and the Skrulls were going to play a big part in Captain Marvel. Since all of Secret Invasion is on Marvel Unlimited, I figured, why not check it out?
Then I thought, why not check out other crossovers that I never fully read before? So with some major help from a site called Comic Book Herald I went all the way back to Avengers Disassembled (July 2004) and started reading massive Marvel crossovers.
Several “events” later, I read Secret Invasion. After that, the next big thing was “Dark Reign”. Thanks to his highly publicized actions during “Secret Invasion”, Norman “Green Goblin” Osbourne becomes top cop in the United States, and by extension, the world. The thing is, “Dark Reign” wasn’t really a crossover. It was a line-wide direction.
So, I started reading pretty much every Marvel Comic that interested me, month to month. And I’ve kept going like that ever since.
If you listen to our podcast, I usually update our listeners as to where I’m at whenever we record. Last night I finished off July, 2011, and filled up my MU library with stuff I wanted to read from August. I’m averaging two months of comics for every month of real time. Which means I should be catching up to “current time” sometime around 2027. 😀 I realize that may seem slow to everyone, but I’m reading a lot of books! The list for August currently stands at 55 books, and will likely grow. How so? Let me explain.
For most of the books, which are ongoing, I will read an issue, and then add the next issue of the run to my library. So, when I finish off a month, most of the next month’s books are already in there. I use the browsing screen (Marvel Unlimited’s app has a great feature where you can browse by publication date) to add in anything else like one-shots or new books.
The thing is, some of the books (I’m looking at Amazing Spider-Man in particular) were being published more than once a month. I don’t have all the ASM issues for August in my library right now… they’ll be added one at a time as I get to them. So I’m not sure the final count for August. If people are curious enough, let me know and I’ll do it the harder way and find out. (Yes, I am trolling for comments. Sue me! 😀 )
A minimum of 55 comics are going to take me some time. We’re talking well over a thousand pages of comics. That’s why I’m only managing two months per month of real time. (I can’t spend all my time on Marvel Unlimited. I don’t want to burn out, plus there’s too many other things I need to do. 😀 )
So, what am I reading in August, 2011? It’s dominated by two events: Fear Itself and Spider-Island.
I find it amusing that I’m reading Fear Itself right now. Fear Itself was a big event that was an odd mix of Ed Brubaker’s Captain America run and Thor. The plot is this: Sin, the Red Skull’s daughter, awakens the Asgardian Fear God called the Serpent. The Serpent summons seven hammers to change people into his old servants, the Worthy. Each hammer bestows Thor-level power. The world starts spiraling into terror, and all the heroes have to cope.
The reason I’m amused that I’m reading this is because right now, another big Asgardian inspired crossover, War of the Realms, is being added to Marvel Unlimited week-by-week. So while I read one big Asgardian crossover I know another big Asgardian crossover is waiting for me at the (current) end of the line. 😀 August, 2011 has issue #5 of Fear Itself and a whole bunch of crossover titles. So it’s starting to come to a crescendo (Fear Itself was a 7 issue LS.)
Spider-Island is the first big event of Dan Slott’s amazing (pun intended) run of Amazing Spider-Man. I’d always heard good things about Slott’s run, and I gotta say, I’m really enjoying reading the beginnings of it.
What else is there? Well, on the X-Men side there’s the Schism storyline that set up a new status quo for that corner of the MU. By the time its over Wolverine & Cyclops will go their separate ways and each take a bunch of X-Men with them.
I’m reading a number of books from Greg Pak & Fred VanLente: Incredible Hulks, Herc, and Alpha Flight. Mark Waid’s run on Daredevil started in July, so I’m looking forward to issue #2. These are all really, really fun comics; comics that successfully mix humour with drama. I highly recommend them. And I’m continuing with the Bendis-era Avengers books. For the most part I’m enjoying them, although the work isn’t nearly as strong as what Bendis did on Ultimate Spider-Man.
And with that, I’m going to call it a day on this column. The next one will come out when (you guessed it!) I get to September, 2011. I’m still feeling my way here, figuring out how to make this an interesting read. I hope you’ll stick with me while I do. At least I won’t have to repeat all the exposition next time! 😀 😀 😀
So, sometimes you stumble into opportunities by sheer accident. One such opportunity came about a week ago. My wife had booked a table at the Beechwood Winter Market here in Ottawa as part of her Mary Kay business. I had gone to pick her up a little early, and decided to walk around a bit, see what was there. Upon returning to the room she was based in, I discovered that the table directly behind her’s was manned by a local artist and his wife/editor selling their own comic books.
Von Allan and Sam “Moggy” B operate Von Allan Studio here in Ottawa and Von and I had a fun chat about comics, particularly my all-time favourite Alpha Flight. Then, to my delighted surprise, he gifted me an autographed copy of his ongoing series “Wolf’s Head.” So, there’s the full disclosure part of the review out of the way. This was a gift, and we at Out of the Basement are hoping to have Von on “the show” some day, either as part of Pat’s interview series or as a guest for a full episode recording.
That being said: How was the book? Well, I can happily report that I enjoyed it quite a bit. If I had to describe it in a short one-liner, it would be “urban sci-fi.” The protagonist, Lauren, has come into possession of an A.I that has reached singularity; in other words, it is well and truly self-aware. The A.I inhabits a cloud of what appears to be nanobots and it is capable of remarkable things, particularly when teamed with Lauren’s dog, Sanko. (Apologies to Von, as I can’t seem to figure out how to find and insert a properly accented ‘o’ to spell the dog’s name correctly.)
The two main stories deal with Lauren’s attempts to learn more about how the A.I works, the fallout in her life that her new “charge” has created, and an antagonist’s decision to take private action against Lauren to gain revenge.
I like Von’s style. I wish I were the knowledgeable sort of comics fan that can go into details about art technique and the like, but I’m not. I’m just a reader, not usually a reviewer and all I can say is what I like and what I don’t. I liked the art, the plot was quite clear despite coming into it four issues in, and the dialogue worked for me. (When he chose issue #4 to give me, Von told me it was a good jumping-on point. I have to agree with him.)
It is without a doubt a book for adults. Profanity is used frequently and the main character is shown sleeping in the nude. If that sort of thing bothers you, this is not a book for you. If you don’t mind that sort of thing and enjoy “grounded” science fiction, this book is well worth your time,
There are three “backup” stories. The first is a small side piece featuring “Super Bob” Sanchez, a side character contracted by our main antagonist in the main stories. The second is a text piece details how Von’s earliest work “the road to god knows” got used in a documentary called I Am Still Your Child. A couple of pages demonstrate how Von updated the art for use in the doc. The last backup is a short tale called “I Was Afraid for My Life” which sadly illustrates the dangers of being African-American in today’s climate.
So, this was a very fortuitous chance meeting, and I’m grateful to Von and Moggy for giving me the chance to give Wolf’s Head a try. Definitely different from my usual Marvel Comics fare, but nothing wrong with that. 😀
So yeah, this is the second This Week in Marvel Unlimited post today, as I completely failed to do one last week. If you’re enjoying the column, you might want to check out the first part of the double-shot right below this one.
On the “new” side of things, we’re in the week of June 5th, 2019. Age of X-Man presents Prisoner X #4, and Uncanny X-Men continues on its merry way to House of X/Powers of X with issue #19. War of the Realms reaches #5, with another five crossover issues becoming available. Black Cat gets a new series and Marvel continues to mine Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan story with Dead Man Logan #8 and Old Man Quill #6. Meet the Skrulls finishes with issue #5 and Domino: Hotshots reaches #4. The most interesting thing to me in the “new” column is Incredible Hulk: Last Call #1.
I was late to the game when it came to Peter David’s award-winning twelve-year run on the Hulk. I started reading it at the very end, actually, with the stories that came out of the Heroes Reborn storylines. Still, good stuff, and I have to say that David’s farewell issue, featuring a future Rick Jones who man or may not be paralyzed, was fantastic.
I eventually got the chance to read the entire run thanks to, (you guessed it), Marvel Unlimited. David’s entire Hulk output is available, and if you’re a subscriber it is well worth the read.
Last Call #1 is a one-shot by David with one of his best known Hulk collaborators, Dale Keown. I know nothing about it, but I know that it’s jumped pretty high on my “to-read” list. Unfortunately the list keeps growing larger and larger, but hey… there are worse problems around than too much reading material, right? 😀
The backlist is really, really short this week. There’s three issues of The New Defenders. That’s it. It fills in some holes towards the end of that run, but there are still a lot of issues missing. For example, this add gives #138, #148 and #149. There are no issues between #138 and #148. #150 is available, and #152… but not #151. It’s funny how Marvel Unlimited goes sometimes.
That’s it for this week. Tune in next week to see if I get the column out on a timely basis again! As always, please feel free to leave comments; I’d really like to see them. Au revoir!
Hello all! So yes, last week was an absolute fail in the “get the column out” department. So today, I’m going to talk about two weeks in Marvel Unlimited! Let’s look at what came out 2019-12-02…
On the new side of things, from the week of May 29th, 2019, we have our obligatory Age of X-Man issue, X-Tremists #4, and five crossover issues with War of the Realms. For the all-ages crowd there’s Marvel Action: Avengers, and media tie-ins get Marvel Rising and Spider-Man: City at War, both at #3. (The Spider-Man one is from the very popular Playstation 4 videogame “universe”.) In the x-universe corner of Marvel, Liefeld’s Major X #4 arrives (of six) and the third series of X-Men: Grand Design (subtitled X-Tinction) has its first issue made available.
I’ve been hearing good things about Grand Design. It’s an unusual book, a retelling of the entire X-Men saga, with all the work (writing, art, lettering) done by one person: Ed Piskor. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s definitely on my “want to read” list.
Naturally, there’s more stuff in there,like the Magnificent Ms. Marvel #3, Superior Spider-Man #6 and more. But I want to keep this moving! So, what’s been added from the back catalogue?
Well, we have two X-Men books: The Survival Guide to the Mansion from 1993 and X-Men Annual #1 from 1991. The Survival Guide isn’t the usual Official Handbook style writeups of characters; instead it talks about the X-Men’s home and gear. The Annual, meanwhile, is part one of a crossover called Shattershot, which focused on Longshot and Shatterstar. With the addition of this annual the crossover is fully available on Marvel Unlimited for those of us nostalgic for X-Men comics from the early 90s.
The other addition to the archives is five issues of Marvel Chillers from 1975-76. Issues 3 through 7, to be precise, and the addition means that the entire series is available (yes, it only lasted seven issues).
The first two issues featured Modred the Mystic, but these five feature Tigra, the Were-Woman! (Yes, they saddled the character with that over-the-top title.) Tigra is interesting, imho, from a historical standpoint.
Tigra started out as another character, Greer Nelson, a.k.a The Cat. The Cat had her own series from 1972 to 1973, created by Marvel legend Roy Thomas. It was very much a feminist take on super-heroics, but only lasted four issues. Tony Isabella (of Black Lightning fame) revamped Greer into Tigra, the Were-Woman in the pages of Giant-Size Creatures #1. That issue isn’t available on Marvel Unlimited unfortunately. After the revamp came the Marvel Chillers issues.
Tigra has only headlined her own book once since then as far as I know: a 2002 four issue LS. Still, the character has had a lot of longevity as part of the ensemble cast of various Avengers books. It’s interesting to be able to look back at her early adventures.
Onwards to part two this week…