Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts
Monday, August 31, 2015
New Arrival: Nonfiction: Marvel, The Avengers Vault, by Peter A. David et al
Marvel, The Avengers Vault
Peter A. David, designed by Katie Benezra
ISBN: 9781626862999
Hardcover pop-art history book with lots of lose-leaf inserts and reference materials.
This was a fun browse through Marvel history. I loved the design of the cover and of the book, but the fun of finding the little pages inserted randomly into the book was sadly ruined because we're a library, so we have to keep them all accounted for and noted.
The book itself has a fun flow, but it's organized in a way that makes it a little difficult to reference if you were looking up specific information. (There is no index, for example, and it could really use one.) First we get a brief tour through the history of the Avengers, then a chapter each on the current big four: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk, and then a final chapter about Avengers on TV or in movies. There's even a roster of who was on the team when, and a breakdown of all the different major Avengers teams.
All of this of course in the current gaudy primary-color comics splash art style, with little sidenotes and bits of trivia sprinkled in.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Movie Novelizations: MCU Phase One, The Avengers, Alex Irvine
I found this in the bookstore and couldn't resist the lovely cover!
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One, The Avengers
Alex Irvine
ISBN: 9780316256377
MG novelization of the 2012 movie, The Avengers.
To state the obvious first, this is an actual novelization of the film, and therefore has all of the scenes and events of the film in order, all the way to completion. This is not a "teaser" or a "movie storybook" with character bios or plot hints.
I was interested to see what sort of changes and omissions would be necessary to make The Avengers (overseas title: Avengers Assemble) into a MG-level book as far as content, and I have to say that I was impressed with the deft handling of the storyline, characters, and content.
I may possibly be a giant MCU fangirl, and so there were a couple of places where I have quibbles about the dialogue - please note that these aren't the places where certain not-so-PG comments are elided or rephrased, but other sections of dialogue that I felt were unclear or badly formatted. Dialogue is seriously difficult, and transcribing actual human speech, even in an environment as structured as a script, is even more difficult. It is impressive that Irvine got as much of Whedon's patter down in a manner I felt was satisfying, so the few bits I read as flubs sadly stood out quite a lot to me.
As far as the PG alterations, here's what I noticed:
1) Black Widow's introductory scene is handled beautifully by simply refusing to comment on her clothing.
2) In the scene with Barton, Loki, and Selvig, Loki's query as to what Barton needs garners a different response: "I need a distraction" he says, "and a biometric ID" instead of the slightly more disturbing comment in the film.
3) In related plot-developments, Loki doesn't gouge out any body parts in Stuttgart.
4) The Loki/Black Widow interrogation scene omits a certain nasty British imprecation.
5) Banner's despairing speech about Hulk's utter invincibility is left as an implication of suicide, with the actual description of his attempt left entirely out.
Now, oddly enough, despite all that, Cap still gets to call aliens "bastards" in the final battle, and I'm not sure if they just missed that one, or decided it was their single use and better make it a good one. It isn't like I mind language (although that it's CAP's language is especially amusing, given Ultron's running joke) but when it's the only instance in the whole book, it does become rather more noticeable and a bit jarring.
This one was super cute, and now I'm planning to hunt up the other ones.
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One, The Avengers
Alex Irvine
ISBN: 9780316256377
MG novelization of the 2012 movie, The Avengers.
To state the obvious first, this is an actual novelization of the film, and therefore has all of the scenes and events of the film in order, all the way to completion. This is not a "teaser" or a "movie storybook" with character bios or plot hints.
I was interested to see what sort of changes and omissions would be necessary to make The Avengers (overseas title: Avengers Assemble) into a MG-level book as far as content, and I have to say that I was impressed with the deft handling of the storyline, characters, and content.
I may possibly be a giant MCU fangirl, and so there were a couple of places where I have quibbles about the dialogue - please note that these aren't the places where certain not-so-PG comments are elided or rephrased, but other sections of dialogue that I felt were unclear or badly formatted. Dialogue is seriously difficult, and transcribing actual human speech, even in an environment as structured as a script, is even more difficult. It is impressive that Irvine got as much of Whedon's patter down in a manner I felt was satisfying, so the few bits I read as flubs sadly stood out quite a lot to me.
As far as the PG alterations, here's what I noticed:
1) Black Widow's introductory scene is handled beautifully by simply refusing to comment on her clothing.
2) In the scene with Barton, Loki, and Selvig, Loki's query as to what Barton needs garners a different response: "I need a distraction" he says, "and a biometric ID" instead of the slightly more disturbing comment in the film.
3) In related plot-developments, Loki doesn't gouge out any body parts in Stuttgart.
4) The Loki/Black Widow interrogation scene omits a certain nasty British imprecation.
5) Banner's despairing speech about Hulk's utter invincibility is left as an implication of suicide, with the actual description of his attempt left entirely out.
Now, oddly enough, despite all that, Cap still gets to call aliens "bastards" in the final battle, and I'm not sure if they just missed that one, or decided it was their single use and better make it a good one. It isn't like I mind language (although that it's CAP's language is especially amusing, given Ultron's running joke) but when it's the only instance in the whole book, it does become rather more noticeable and a bit jarring.
This one was super cute, and now I'm planning to hunt up the other ones.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Graphic Novel (two Trade collections) Thor, God of Thunder: The God Butcher & Godbomb; Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic
I've been slowly dipping my toe back into reading serialized comics again (God help me), starting with the new Thor (she's lovely! - but only two issues so far) and the "off-duty" Hawkeye series. I heard good things about this one, and thought I'd give it a whirl, as it's a fairly-stand-alone story.
Thor: God of Thunder; Vol.1: The God Butcher
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic
Color Artists: Dean White & Ive Svorcina
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Graphic Novel: collecting Thor: God of Thunder, issues 1-5
Thor: God of Thunder; Vol. 2: Godbomb
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic
Pencils: Butch Guice
Inks: Tom Palmer
Color Artist: Ive Svorcina
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Graphic Novel: collecting Thor: God of Thunder, issues 6-11
In this graphic collection, we get not one, not two, but THREE Thors!
We first encounter our God of Thunder many thousands of years in the past, before he has become worthy of wielding Mjolnir, and has to make do with flying goats and the great axe Jarnbjorn. Poor guy. He's on earth, enjoying the adoration and warmaking of the early Vikings, when he gets his first indication that something is very wrong with the universe, as an encounter quickly becomes deadly.
Next up is of course Thor of the Avengers in the present day (whenever that happens to be), familiar to most via the recent Marvel movies. He's tooling around the universe, and stops to answer a child's prayer for rain - the gods of her world have stopped answering them. Naturally brash and curious, Thor investigates, and to his shock, he's dragged into another deadly encounter with a foe he had long-ago forgotten, back on earth.
Finally, we get Ancient Thor, a dead ringer for Odin (and about as snarky) who weilds Mjolnir in an abandoned and ruined Asgard, pinned down and repeatedly tormented by inky liquid void creatures who won't ever kill him, but leave him there to rot in bitter solitude.
From these introductions, we gradually learn, as Thor does, the story of a disillusioned young person who becomes ever more bitter and vengeful, until he finds great power and uses it to revenge his slights. As he travels his dark road, he becomes so much worse than the evils he set out to annihilate.
There is time-travel here, and it's handled decently well (I was grateful to the call-outs to the X-Men's greater familiarity with such things, and with the inevitable forgetting that occurs to prevent this being expected by the elder two Thors).
I will say the climactic sequence was a little confusing with multiple iterations of the same person flying about being Godlike, in what I think were several different locations.
Still, the gist of the story was always clear, the character(s) of Thor are actually amazingly differentiated, there are secondary characters who are interesting and seem to have lives outside of their appearances here.
There is also drama and humor, evil and benevolence, great power to overcome or co-opt, a villain that is always treated sympathetically by the text, even as he's being pummeled by Gods, and an underlying question of whether these "gods" even deserve to be named such and worshipped (said question is left unanswered, in a bravura moment of introspection by a normally less-than-thoughtful Thor).
Not bad for a comic book, huh?
Thor: God of Thunder; Vol.1: The God Butcher
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic
Color Artists: Dean White & Ive Svorcina
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Graphic Novel: collecting Thor: God of Thunder, issues 1-5
Thor: God of Thunder; Vol. 2: Godbomb
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic
Pencils: Butch Guice
Inks: Tom Palmer
Color Artist: Ive Svorcina
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Graphic Novel: collecting Thor: God of Thunder, issues 6-11
In this graphic collection, we get not one, not two, but THREE Thors!
We first encounter our God of Thunder many thousands of years in the past, before he has become worthy of wielding Mjolnir, and has to make do with flying goats and the great axe Jarnbjorn. Poor guy. He's on earth, enjoying the adoration and warmaking of the early Vikings, when he gets his first indication that something is very wrong with the universe, as an encounter quickly becomes deadly.
Next up is of course Thor of the Avengers in the present day (whenever that happens to be), familiar to most via the recent Marvel movies. He's tooling around the universe, and stops to answer a child's prayer for rain - the gods of her world have stopped answering them. Naturally brash and curious, Thor investigates, and to his shock, he's dragged into another deadly encounter with a foe he had long-ago forgotten, back on earth.
Finally, we get Ancient Thor, a dead ringer for Odin (and about as snarky) who weilds Mjolnir in an abandoned and ruined Asgard, pinned down and repeatedly tormented by inky liquid void creatures who won't ever kill him, but leave him there to rot in bitter solitude.
From these introductions, we gradually learn, as Thor does, the story of a disillusioned young person who becomes ever more bitter and vengeful, until he finds great power and uses it to revenge his slights. As he travels his dark road, he becomes so much worse than the evils he set out to annihilate.
There is time-travel here, and it's handled decently well (I was grateful to the call-outs to the X-Men's greater familiarity with such things, and with the inevitable forgetting that occurs to prevent this being expected by the elder two Thors).
I will say the climactic sequence was a little confusing with multiple iterations of the same person flying about being Godlike, in what I think were several different locations.
Still, the gist of the story was always clear, the character(s) of Thor are actually amazingly differentiated, there are secondary characters who are interesting and seem to have lives outside of their appearances here.
There is also drama and humor, evil and benevolence, great power to overcome or co-opt, a villain that is always treated sympathetically by the text, even as he's being pummeled by Gods, and an underlying question of whether these "gods" even deserve to be named such and worshipped (said question is left unanswered, in a bravura moment of introspection by a normally less-than-thoughtful Thor).
Not bad for a comic book, huh?
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Graphic Novel: Hawkeye (collected issues: Hawkeye #1-11, Young Avengers Presents #6)
Hawkeye
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artists: David Aja, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber, Jesse Hamm, Francesco Francavilla
Cover Artists: David Aja, Annie Wu, Francesco Francavilla
Color: Matt Hollingsworth, Francesco Francavilla
Letterer: Chris Eliopolos
ISBN: 9780785184874
Graphic Novel: Hawkeye issues #1-11, Young Avengers Presents #6
These are so much fun!
Poor Barton has such bad instincts. He gets himself into all sorts of scrapes that he really ought to know better than to get into, and only his truly astounding durability - and sometimes a little help from his friends - gets him back out in (mostly) one piece.
If you've ever wondered what the Avengers do when they're not on duty, here's the answer for Hawkeye at least - gets the piss beaten out of him by the tracksuited "Bro" gang, as well as other bad guys that he just happens to piss off in passing. He's good at that, almost as good as Spiderman, really. Unfortunately, he doesn't show Spidey's acrobatic prowess in avoiding getting hit, and he literally spends the entire comic collection acquiring and working off various injuries (sometimes serious ones) due to his extracurricular activities. Makes me wonder if perhaps he isn't safer ON the job than off it!
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artists: David Aja, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber, Jesse Hamm, Francesco Francavilla
Cover Artists: David Aja, Annie Wu, Francesco Francavilla
Color: Matt Hollingsworth, Francesco Francavilla
Letterer: Chris Eliopolos
ISBN: 9780785184874
Graphic Novel: Hawkeye issues #1-11, Young Avengers Presents #6
These are so much fun!
Poor Barton has such bad instincts. He gets himself into all sorts of scrapes that he really ought to know better than to get into, and only his truly astounding durability - and sometimes a little help from his friends - gets him back out in (mostly) one piece.
If you've ever wondered what the Avengers do when they're not on duty, here's the answer for Hawkeye at least - gets the piss beaten out of him by the tracksuited "Bro" gang, as well as other bad guys that he just happens to piss off in passing. He's good at that, almost as good as Spiderman, really. Unfortunately, he doesn't show Spidey's acrobatic prowess in avoiding getting hit, and he literally spends the entire comic collection acquiring and working off various injuries (sometimes serious ones) due to his extracurricular activities. Makes me wonder if perhaps he isn't safer ON the job than off it!
Monday, January 27, 2014
Mystic: The Tenth Apprentice, G. Willow Wilson, David Lopez, Alvaro Lopez, Nathan Fairbairn, Jared K. Fletcher
Mystic: The Tenth Apprentice
Writer, G. Willow Wilson
Penciler, David Lopez
Inker, Alvaro Lopez
Colorist, Nathan Fairbairn
Letterer, Jared K. Fletcher
ISBN: 9780785156086
Graphic Novel, combined Mystic Issues 1-4.
So the backstory here is that a comics group named CrossGen folded a while back, leaving a whole lot of stories unfinished, just hanging out with no chance of resolution (as an avid reader, I totally sympathize - that SUCKS as a reader). Marvel picked up the CrossGen catalog, but instead of picking up the originals and running with them, it's 'rebooting' each story as a limited-run set of complete stories, to see which of them, if any, are popular or interesting enough to put into commission as full lines.
That said, I never read the originals, but added this particular one based on good reviews in a variety of places. I'm glad I did, and I'm also glad that it showed up today for a good 'slip back into reading' expreience, because frankly my brains aren't up for anything strenuous these past few days.
We start in a classic Dickensian fashion, with two orphan girls in indentured servitude to the headmistress of the orphanage where they were left as children. They have to pay her back for the cost of their raising, you see. (Which is an excellent nasty plot hook, to be totally honest.) One is dreamy and starry-eyed, full of faith and hope in the goodness of Fate and her certitude that life will get better. The other is a hard-nosed cynic, smart-mouthed and suspicious. Life is made bearable by their regular sneaking visits to the lady's library, until they are found out and escape into the streets. By a set of circumstances best characterized as giddy handwaving, one ends up in the lap of luxury, learning to become an elite mage, while the other one joins the violent French Revolution-inspired street mobs as a powerful figurehead. The kicker is that the dreamer ends up as the cynical revolutionary while the cynic has to have faith in her new aristocratic companions.
Is it earth-shattering plotting? Nope, but it's awfully fun anyway. The story is really a veneer over the revolution, with beheadings and dramatic posing on top of barrel-constructed barricades. In places I really felt like the characters were about to break into a Les Mis musical number.
Are the characters awesome? Eh, they're archtypes. But I still liked reading about them. The only real downside I have with the characters is that during the ending (which requires group action) a character participates, or at the very least, refrains from sabotage, which doesn't match the character at all.
Well, the art is glorious, right? I liked it, but it isn't Sandman or Sin City or Girl Genius. Still, it's easy to tell who is who, the characters are distinctive and interesting (I appreciated the mix of skin-tones) and the colors and design layout play very nicely with the progression and dynamics of the story, while the lettering is well-placed to not distract from the art, but still is readable and flows logically (which feat is apparently harder than it seems, given the many times I've been confused by what order text blocks are supposed to be following).
So, I like it. It isn't a great artistic masterpiece, but it's funny, obviously references the classics, it's readable, easy on the eyes, and doesn't have anything objectionable sexually or violently (beheadings are threatened but averted).
About my speed tonight.
PS - (spoiler warning) Many of the reviews made me worry that the story would have more of a tragic culmination than it did. It obviously doesn't finish everything off neatly -it was intended to kickstart a series after all - but neither does it leave the reader in the lurch or with a tragic death to digest. (end spoiler)
Writer, G. Willow Wilson
Penciler, David Lopez
Inker, Alvaro Lopez
Colorist, Nathan Fairbairn
Letterer, Jared K. Fletcher
ISBN: 9780785156086
Graphic Novel, combined Mystic Issues 1-4.
So the backstory here is that a comics group named CrossGen folded a while back, leaving a whole lot of stories unfinished, just hanging out with no chance of resolution (as an avid reader, I totally sympathize - that SUCKS as a reader). Marvel picked up the CrossGen catalog, but instead of picking up the originals and running with them, it's 'rebooting' each story as a limited-run set of complete stories, to see which of them, if any, are popular or interesting enough to put into commission as full lines.
That said, I never read the originals, but added this particular one based on good reviews in a variety of places. I'm glad I did, and I'm also glad that it showed up today for a good 'slip back into reading' expreience, because frankly my brains aren't up for anything strenuous these past few days.
We start in a classic Dickensian fashion, with two orphan girls in indentured servitude to the headmistress of the orphanage where they were left as children. They have to pay her back for the cost of their raising, you see. (Which is an excellent nasty plot hook, to be totally honest.) One is dreamy and starry-eyed, full of faith and hope in the goodness of Fate and her certitude that life will get better. The other is a hard-nosed cynic, smart-mouthed and suspicious. Life is made bearable by their regular sneaking visits to the lady's library, until they are found out and escape into the streets. By a set of circumstances best characterized as giddy handwaving, one ends up in the lap of luxury, learning to become an elite mage, while the other one joins the violent French Revolution-inspired street mobs as a powerful figurehead. The kicker is that the dreamer ends up as the cynical revolutionary while the cynic has to have faith in her new aristocratic companions.
Is it earth-shattering plotting? Nope, but it's awfully fun anyway. The story is really a veneer over the revolution, with beheadings and dramatic posing on top of barrel-constructed barricades. In places I really felt like the characters were about to break into a Les Mis musical number.
Are the characters awesome? Eh, they're archtypes. But I still liked reading about them. The only real downside I have with the characters is that during the ending (which requires group action) a character participates, or at the very least, refrains from sabotage, which doesn't match the character at all.
Well, the art is glorious, right? I liked it, but it isn't Sandman or Sin City or Girl Genius. Still, it's easy to tell who is who, the characters are distinctive and interesting (I appreciated the mix of skin-tones) and the colors and design layout play very nicely with the progression and dynamics of the story, while the lettering is well-placed to not distract from the art, but still is readable and flows logically (which feat is apparently harder than it seems, given the many times I've been confused by what order text blocks are supposed to be following).
So, I like it. It isn't a great artistic masterpiece, but it's funny, obviously references the classics, it's readable, easy on the eyes, and doesn't have anything objectionable sexually or violently (beheadings are threatened but averted).
About my speed tonight.
PS - (spoiler warning) Many of the reviews made me worry that the story would have more of a tragic culmination than it did. It obviously doesn't finish everything off neatly -it was intended to kickstart a series after all - but neither does it leave the reader in the lurch or with a tragic death to digest. (end spoiler)
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