This article explains in depth why “Superman sucks”. But it also goes on to say that he can never be interesting. I’d like to disagree but I’m finding it hard to find an agreement. Towards the end he says

Superman represents hope and indefatigable strength, and any attempt to complicate these issues would no longer make him Superman. By definition, Superman has to be boring and morally absolute because if he isn’t, he ain’t Superman.

Which I can agree with. But why not have a story where he has to decide if he should stop a village from being swallowed by an earthquake or stopping a small child from being murdered. One of those events would happen and he has to deal with decision he made. (I believe this scenario was played out in Captain Marvel, but it made a nice example).

I guess having a flawed Superman would be like having your hopes dashed every month.

Anyway this one will deal with the Spider-Man story Brand New/One More Day. So if you haven’t read it yet or are waiting for the trades or something STOP! Hammertime… or spoilers lie ahead.

For those who have been living under a rock lately, Spidey had a life altering story going on for the last 10 months. I’ll break it down with niffty headings, cuz I’m nice like that.

Civil War

Peter unmasks to the world with Iron man backing him up, only to find out that Iron Man’s not too upfront about the fact that he’s keeping heroes and villains who don’t register in a prison without those troubling court appearances. I think Spidey’s big gripe was the fact that Iron man was actually using former villains to track down mutual friends of theirs. Any case, Peter says see ya to Iron Man (with his fist) and sticks MJ and Aunt May in a Hotel while he goes off to fight the good fight against Iron Man. Iron man in the mean time employs registered villains to hunt down Spidey. Anyway, things happen, the war is over and Spidey goes to fetch MJ and May so they can… figure out where to go now that everyone knows what he looks like. But just as he gets home a sniper opens fire on their hotel room. Spider Sense in full effect he jumps onto MJ to move her out of the way, but May is caught with a bullet in her belly.

Back in Black

Moving on a bit, Pete puts on his black threads (just as Spider-man 3 comes out! What a coincidence!) and swears to find the shooter by any means necessary. Long story short, King Pin (from jail) paid the shooter to take out Spidey and the rest of his family. Spidey shows up to the jail (can’t remember the name of it Staten Island maybe?) with intent to kill. But instead of killing him things it would be better to humiliate him in front of all his lackeys. But we still have that pesky dying Aunt/Mother figure problem.

One More Day

Now we get to the fun part. With the mounting hospital bills Peter is starting to get desperate to save his over 80 year old Aunt. So naturally he goes to his sudo-father figure Iron Man. They duke it out and Iron Man says he can’t help him if he’s unregistered. Peter blames Iron Man for his Aunt’s apparent death and moves on to another way to help. After cooling down Iron Man has a weak moment and pays for the finest medical care money can buy for May, not in his name but in Jarvais’s (his Butler) who pretends to be a distant cousin of May.

That’s great, but she’s still in a coma with no end in sight. So Spidey turns to magic and his friend Doc Strange. I wasn’t able to get this issue so I have no idea what happened, but clearly nothing major as when I pick up the story we still have May in a coma. In comes Mephisto!

Mephisto is pretty much the devil in Marvel’s universe. He’s popped up randomly in some of the more magic and cosmic oriented heroes. Mephisto wants to make a deal, he’ll save May’s life in exchange for Peter and MJs marriage. Up all he has to do to save his elderly Aunt is give up on his wife. A simple no for most logical people. The woman is in her 80s and she lead a full life, but not Pete. For some reason he’s undecided. So MJ makes the deal for him and Pete then agrees. I’ll say that again for you. Both Peter and MJ think their lives together isn’t worth the handful of years May has left. Have they been having marriage issues we weren’t aware of? So the Parkers make a deal with the devil and May lives.

Brand New Day

Now we join Peter in his bachelor pad… meaning his Aunt’s home. He’s had a cash flow problem, so he moved back in. (Not that I can say much about that). Then he goes to a party where we see Harry Osborne who is alive and well and we are randomly introduced to other female characters (clearly future love interests) and of course Peter finds MJ and watches her walk out. Harry comments on how they (Pete and MJ) still aren’t talking.

End of Review.

This could have been done so many different better ways. I get that the editors didn’t want Spider-Man married. Saying a married guy should be settling down not adding more drama (and comics are about drama). I can even agree with that a little. Peter was getting older. Which works for me. Spider-Man was growing with my generation. Which doesn’t sound like what Marvel wants. They would like him to forever be 23ish.

However, there are a crap-ton of plot holes in this story. Like how is Aunt May’s house not burned to the ground (happened just before Civil War, hence the reason why they moved into Iron Man’s home.)? Supposedly nothing changed except the marriage. Mostly all the stories happened, it was just that Peter was single. They keep saying that something happened on the wedding day so that they didn’t pull the trigger. So what happened with that?

Why would you agree to abolish your marriage for a woman who might not even make it another 3 years. I get that it’s like Peter’s mother figure, but seriously! I would hope that May would say “Just let me die”. It seemed like a no brainer. And wouldn’t Loki have been a better choice for this? Those not in the loop: Spidey saved Loki’s daughter a few months before Civil War and Loki said he owed him one. The man’s a god, surely he could bring people back from the dead/coma.

This story would have made so much more sense if MJ was the one that was shot and he made a deal to save her in exchange for his marriage. Would even be better if Peter remembers everything, but no one else in his time line does. He’d have this longing for her but nothing he could do about it.

Hopefully some of these holes will be patched up in the next few issues. If not I have to decide if I want to renew my spidey comics (which come out 3 times a month now… tripling the monthly cost) or not.

The Dead Zone
Stars Anthony Micheal Hall (of The Breakfast Club fame) . He has a fiancée with a baby on the way and on the way home from something he gets hit by a car and ends up in a coma for six years and wakes up psychic but his fiancée has moved on and is married to this other guy now. At first he hates the dude (who wouldn’t really) but turns out he’s not a bad guy at all and after about 3 seasons Johnny moves on. But back to the vision thing… He gets visions off of touching things, be it people who bump into him or some kind of personal item. Being the good doobie that he is he tries to stop the horrible visions from happening (like stopping bombs or saving someone from being killed).

This season (I want to say 5) kind of started out with a bang. Johnny gets a vision that Walt (his ex fiancée’s husband) is going to die. Naturally he tells Walt and sticks to him like glue for the day to see what else he can get about his death and how to prevent it. He finally gets a vision that has Walt living but has someone else dead and he tells Walt. Walt being the sheriff runs into a burning building to save this other guy but dies in the process. Now the widow says to Johnny “You didn’t see this happening?”, Johnny says No. So you know there’ll be a whole episode or season about how Sarah finds out that Johnny did see it and make it look like Johnny just let him die.

It’s a fun little Sci Fi show. Sometimes the acting is WAY over the top. But it’s still on my Tivo.

The 4400
This one will replace your Heroes fix for the summer at least. Here’s the rundown: Over the last 50 years random people have “disappeared” with out a trace. Then one day satellites pick up a giant object headed straight for earth, the Seattle area to be exact. Now for some reason NTAC (some kind of FBI wannabe organization) decides to send people to the site where this thing is going to hit, knowing full well that they will die. Turns out it’s not a meteor but a ball of light. When it hits the light is replaced with 4400 people that have all been “taken” over the last few decades. They have no memory of what happened. They were all quarantined and slowly they found out they all have different abilities. Like the power to heal others, the power to see the future, or move things with their minds. Sounds alot like Rising Stars with a bigger pool of people. But that’s kind of where it ends.

After a few seasons we’ve learned that those 4400 people were sent by people from the future to stop some kind of disaster. We also learned how these people got these abilities. It seems their brain creates this chemical called promisen which gives them this ability. Some doctor has find a way to create a drug that will kick start non 4400s brains to produce the chemical and gain their own ability. But it has a 50% survival rate. The goverment has outlawed the drug and also imprisons anyone who has taken the drug and survives. The original 4400 would not be imprisoned. The 4400 “leader”, Jordan, has been declared an outlaw for hiding those who take the drug and for passing out the drug. Recently he’s also taken over a section of Seattle that has been abandoned for years. So now the 4400 have a base of operations. Not every 4400 agrees with Jordan’s way however.

Sometimes the acting is horrible (mostly from Tom’s partner who I can’t remember her name right now). But for the most part it’s fun. Some of the sub plots are interesting. Like NTAC angent Tom’s son has taken the drug and got an ability and it now leading Jordan as kind of some prophet. So what will Tom do when he finds his son? Arrest him? It’s illegal to take the shot.

Burn Notice
New this season. It’s an action/comedy type show. The main character is a spy for the US government. Almost like a freelancer. Then in the middle of a undercover job he gets a call from his “office” thats says he’s Burned. Basically fired but a million times worse. It seems when your burned you loose everything. They freeze your bank accounts, and any retirement funds. They revolk all forms of identification, passports, visas, drivers license. And your social security number is no longer valid. They basically turn you into a ghost and drop you in some city where your stuck until you can figure things out. Micheal (the main character) gets stuck in Miami. Where a former spy buddy (played by Bruce Campbell) and his trigger happy ex girlfriend happen to be. Oh and also his Mom, who he’s not a fan of. So to get by Micheal picks up odd jobs for people in need. Like clearing a framed man of stealing a priceless painting. Or getting some gun runners to back off and leave the innocent-ish people alone. But while doing this the FBI has their eye on him so he has to sneak around to do these jobs. They also have the character Bruce Campbell plays (Sam) talking to the Feds because they said they’d take away his pension. Sam has told Micheal so they only give them enough to help Micheal and keep them reasonably happy.

It’s a funny show with lots of spy stuff and random explosions. The acting is great. It’s a perfect guy show.

Eureka
This show I got into a bit late so I don’t have all the facts. But basically Jack gets a promotion to be the head sheriff of this small town. He takes it more because he needs a change of scenery. Turns out Eureka is populated by the worlds best scientist and they happen to run experiments that go a little crazy sometimes. Like accidentally creating a force field that never stops growing destroying everything in its path.

Very Sci Fi (might be why it’s on the Sci Fi channel). But it also has loads humor, mostly by Jack not knowing what half the stuff and he’s not afraid of asking for an English translation.

Monk
“The defective detective”. Monk used to be a detective for the San Francisco police department, but his wife Trudy was killed in a car bombing. Since then he’s had all his random little quirks and fears blown WAY out of proportion. Like fear of Milk, or round things, or clouds. He can’t function on a human being, nevermind a police officer. So he becomes more of a freelancer, a PI. Gets called in on tough cases and usually solves them, despite his fear of the week getting in the way. He does have an assistant who really just seems to be a napkin dispenser since he doesn’t want to touch anything. She does tend to calm him down when things get to be too much for him.

It’s kind of a comedy / mystery show. They do seem to win a few Emmy’s now and then too so I’m not the only one who likes it.

Psych
Shawn (or is it Sean?) and Gus grew up togethe, so usually in the beginning of an episode it’s a flash back to the 80s when they were both kids and it usually has Sean’s dad trying to teach him a lesson which never sticks. Basically Sean’s dad drilled this photographic memory into practice into Seans head so he could become this great detective. But instead he’s a bit of a loser with no job just living day to day. Until he gets this idea to solve cases by claiming to be a psychic. Really he’s just an excellent detective but doesn’t want to apply himself.

It’s a very funny show with random 80s jokes. Sometimes hard to believe that the real cops are lame enough to believe he’s a psychic, but it’s entertainment after all.

Hell’s Kitchen
Reality tv! I like this one I think only because of Gordon Ramsay, the “star”. He rounds up chefs and picks one to get their own restaurant for free. All built and ready to go. I think it’s because Gordon becomes a swearing drunken sailor in the kitchen when people mess up the challenges. Which usually involves the new chefs preparing a dinner service for Ramsay’s own restaurant. I wonder if people know that his restaurant is kind of touch and go mostly because they have random chefs cooking. Some of these cooks are really really really horrible and the food reflects that. Why do people keep coming back? Is the food free?

Last Comic Standing
One other reality tv show. It’s stand-up comedy which I love. But this season I’ve seen some of the comics on comedy central with their own specials. I thought this show was for undiscovered talent? One guy is on Best Week Ever on VH1 all the time. It’s still entertaining, I’m just confused on the premise of the show. Can like Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld go on the show?

From what I can remember it wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t like watching grass grow. The story was there, the acting was eh. The effects were fun.  My main gripe was “it’s too short”. I think it’s barely an hour and a half. If I’m spending ten bucks to see the movie I want it to be worth it. Some season premieres on TV are long than this movie. I know Hollywood is convinced that a shorter movie will appeal to those people with the attention spans of flies, but from what I can tell thats not most of the people I know. I think I’ve said it a few times here, but I want longer movies. Not extended TV episodes with Stan Lee popping up. If I wanted that I’d go re-watch that Heroes episode when Hiro gets on a bus and Stan’s the driver.

When I first saw the trailer I was excited. I thought they’d introduce the black suit and then have Venom appear in the last few frames of the movie with a cliffhanger for Spidey 4. Then I saw another trailer that had Venom in it. And I still had hope, I ignored the fact that Hollywood has this weird fascination with trilogies (Seriously why can’t we have 4 movies with the same cast?) and thought they’d show him being “born” and end the movie. Then I began to get skeptical when I heard that no one was signed for a 4th movie. How the hell are they going to fit in the relationship with Gwen, Gwen’s father, Sandman, Eddie Brock, the black suit and finally Venom. Oh and the whole MJ and Peter relationship now that she knows he’s spider-man? And I forgot about Harry being the new green goblin. It’d have to be like a 4 hour movie.

Turns out it was a 2 and a half hour movie and it still felt rushed. According to some it was too long. But I like long movies, this to me felt rushed. I think you can really feel it at the end. But before we get to that lets talk about the bad stuff. In list format for your enjoyment!

1. What the hell was up with the whole Spider-man stopping by the American Flag during that “Spider-man Day” parade thing? It just seemed mega cheesy.
2. I’m beginning to hate movie MJ. She seems extremely jealous that the city her boyfriend risks is life for is appreciative of him. I mean sure her life is kind of going down the drain, but shouldn’t she be a little happy for him? It makes her look extremely shallow. I mean hell Peter still has to sell photos to a guy who calls for his public lynching in central park every day. His best friends father tried to kill him and now it seems his best friend is going down that same road. His uncle was shot down because he didn’t want to stop someone who ripped off a guy he didn’t like. His aunt blames him in the second movie for his uncles death. And is semi-mentor (Doc Ock) turns evil and tries to take out New York. Let him have his moment.
3. The ending seemed weird. Sandman says “I never wanted this to happen” after Venom gets blown up (which you know he survived, there’s no body. I don’t think the bomb was that powerful. I mean Harry survived a bomb to the face.). Yet Sandman didn’t have remorse when he was about two punches away from KILLING Spider-Man. And Spider-Man just LETS HIM GO! What the hell? He robbed at least two banks/trucks and at the VERY least destroyed a few citizens cars. I’m guessing they were hurt since the cars were rolled over. And he just watches him sand storm it out of there.
4. Ok both Goblins are now dead who’s going to kill Gwen? The death of Gwen Stacy was a great story and added so much depth to the character. Even to this day Peter replays the fall from the bridge over in his head to see if he could save her. I hope in 4 (if it gets made) they bring back Norman and do that story.

All that bad stuff being said I did enjoy the movie. It entertained me and I think in some aspects it was better than the comic. I like that Sandman killed his uncle. I do think it’s more powerful if it was just one man and Spider-Man could have stopped it all from happening. I also liked Eddie Brock being a direct competitor with Peter. And that Eddie thinks Peter stole his “girlfriend” as well as ruined his career. In the comics he just lost his job.  But I’d like to see more Venom screen time. He was only on for the last 20 minutes of the movie, which I do understand they had to give Brock his back story but only 20 minutes? It’s what people were waiting for and he shows up 2 hours into the movie? I can see some people getting pissed about that.

Overall: A

New Movie Hulk

It seems Edward Norton is going to play the next Bruce Banner in the movie due out in 2008. Kind of mixed about this. On the one hand Edward Norton is a great actor, but I was in that handful of people who liked the first Hulk movie with Erik Bana. I read a few posts of people saying that Bana was too much of a muscular guy to play puny Banner but that part didn’t really bother too many people the first time around. It might be a better movie but I think it’s a bit strange to pick up where the last movie leftoff and they re-casted the star.

24

24 seems a bit lacking this season. Kind of a been there done that. How many times have we seen Jack take out terrorists who happen to come into a nuke and are hours away from setting them off on American soil. It’s been the major plot device in about 3 of the 5 seasons. They have kind of switched gears to this whole Chinese kidnapped his woman story, but it seems extremely forced. Also how many times is Jack going to be chased by his own people only to have them turn around and say “We need you. You’re the best at this”. You know it’s going to happen. Or the last few episodes of this season are going to be mega boring if we just watch Jack inside a holding cell while the Chinese guys get away. At least he hasn’t stopped his heart only to have it restarted again once whoever he was trying to trick thinks he’s dead… maybe I spoke too soon.

The Shield

This is another show I love. Hasn’t let me down yet. Sometimes they go a bit overboard (Dutch killing a cat just to see what it feels like). But it always keeps me entertained. They always seem to back Mackie into this situation and you think “no way he can get of this” but he does. And they seem to make it believable. Last week they made it seem like the new Captain (forget her name now… Claudette?) wanted Vic to stay around and she would challenge his forced retirement. Turns out she has no plans to appeal his retirement, she just wants Vic on his best behavior when training his replacement. But Vic believes it. So when he finds out you know the shits going to hit the fan. I’m guessing in the next few episodes. This Tuesday looks to be good, seems like Shawn finally confesses to Lem’s killing.

Heroes

I have no idea what I’m going to do this summer. The 5 week break this season was killing me. So was the 4 week winter break they had earlier in the winter. Whats going to happen when we have full MONTHS of no heroes. I hope the 4400 comes on during then for my superhero fix (quick stop to the usa network site and it says it’ll be on starting June 17th, happy birthday to me). Anyway it seems Peter and Nathan’s Mom knew about their powers long before they found out which means either they’re not her kids and she’s working for the company, or she’s got powers of her own. Maybe part of Linderman’s little group of people making a difference but then breaking up over greed (that family is pretty rich it seems). It also seems that Ted has gotten some control over his powers, being able to set off an EMP and not just a hot blast. This next episode seems to be interesting, being 5 years into the future.

You have Hyperion (Superman) he’s the leader. Pictured front and center in the image to the left. He was basically raised by the US government when his ship crash landed on Earth. And that ship we later find out is the source of all the “super powers” that develop and form the other members of the group. But Hyperion didn’t know his parents were US government approved agents that pretended to be his real family. It wasn’t until he was in his mid 20s that he figured it out and he took out a major army base. His powers include super strength, flight, invincibility, something called “flash vision” (think Superman’s heat vision and x-ray vision) and anything else Superman has. The character itself is pretty interesting. He finds out everything he’s been told or felt is a lie. He has no trust for anyone around him but he’s still a decent person at his core. He doesn’t know what to do. He starts finding others that are “like him”.

One guy named Blur (Flash) who is picked up by some shoe company to promote their line of running shoes. Pictured second from the left in the main image.

Someone called Nighthawk (Batman) who prowls the streets of Chicago. Pictured in the background of the image.

All the characters have a darker edge to them. Might be why it’s under the MAX line. It’s like a rated R comic. I just think the story would make for an excellent movie. But I wonder if DC would even allow it. I’m still kind of surprised they allow the comic to go on. Then again did the corner the market on “super babies from space” stories? If they do make a movie about it I demand they use the song “Invincible” by Ok Go. It screams border line crazy Superman.

I thought the movie was very funny. Still not the best Will Ferrell staring role, but I’ll be picked it up once it comes out on DVD. I still think Anchorman is the funniest of his movies. Matter of fact I should rank them!

1. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
2. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
3. Blades of Glory
4. Old School

Now that’s just those funny movies where he’s one of the main characters. I also loved him in Wedding Crashers and Starsky & Hutch.

Overall Score: A-