Post-Mortem Amalgam: "Spider-Boy Team Up"

Expectations are a funny thing. They can influence a bias on both sides; too high an expectation and you can be left disappointed, and too low and you may be made a laughing stock on the critics circuit when you give Grown Ups 2, like, B+, "better than diving into a bath of manure and maggots fast-first, at least!" You don't want to be made a laughing stock on the critics circuit, do you?? 

At some point, though, you have to be reasonable. No-one really likes being disappointed. It might be best to lower your expectations far through to the molten core of the Earth itself, if only to have a better time when you're being dragged to watch some film your stupid friends want to see or something. It's better to be mildly surprised than to be utterly crushed. So it's important to note that my expectations of the Amalgam line were well low. Well, well low. They may have been the lowest expectations I've ever had going into a series of comics, and I've read Freddy vs Jason vs Ash. So, let this be the story of how Amalgam Comics failed to surpass even the mildest of expectation. Oh my dear Jesus Christ, help.

Thur: The Durk Wurld

Thor: The Dark World may not have been a very good movie. As far as act structures, assemblage, pacing, and general flow, it may well be the least technically proficient film of the year, at least story-wise. As something quite else though, The Dark World stands up as possibly the most faithfully "comic"-esque comic book film ever made.

What the first Thor film had in passing, The Dark World has in spades. The magical realm of Asgard, seen as mere bookends for an Avengers-preparing second act, has been expanded into a gigantic, sprawling medieval-meets-sci-fi-meets-Wonderland kingdom. The technology is utterly bizarre, with stone spaceships and space guns and space bazookas (guh?) and all kinds of bizarre quasi-mythological imagery setting the stage for more hammy, classical over-acting from the likes of Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, and Anthony Hopkins (who I frequently forget isn't Jeff Bridges when not talking. Oh, Jeff Bridges is in this fi- oh right it's Anthony Hopkins. I don't know why I think that. I also don't know why I thought Tom Hiddleston's name was Tom Middleton).

Review: "Deadpool"

It was around the time Deadpool went up for pre-order that things started to seem… off. High Moon was hit with layoffs, the team working on Deadpool hit hardest. The release date of June 25th seemed too early for a game with such a high-profile company’s license attached to it, and the fact that Activision didn’t send out early review copies made it all the more clear that they were kicking this one out the door as quickly and quietly as possible. For $30.

I was all good and ready to either love Deadpool like one would love an ugly, braindead puppy, or hate it with an unbridled vengeance. It was either going to be a diamond in the rough, a fantastic game struggling to find its time behind a low budget and a butchered development team, or it was going to be a throwaway piece of cash-grabbing garbage. A masterpiece, or a failure. A hit, or a flop. I didn’t consider it could be a third thing.

Because what I got was much worse.

Review: "Red Skull: Incarnate"

I don't know if it says more about me or the character, but my favourite Marvel Universe villain is Red Skull. He's just so joyfully evil, the kind of guy you can't help but love and loathe simultaneously. And indeed, he carries himself with a gravitas afforded by his stature - he is, essentially, a mega-Nazi; an actually worse-than-Hitler villain who, despite this, is always fun to watch, whether he's shouting "you are failing" in the Captain America moviefilm, or stealing Professor X's brain to eradicate the mutant menace. 

With great anticipation, I picked up Red Skull: Incarnate. Promising to be the origins of Johann Schmidt from a lowly street urchin to the red-faced monster we all know today, it provides a startlingly historically accurate perspective on the rise of the Nazi party. I don't know, then, what I expected. I think I thought it would be as campy and fun as the concept of "Nazi with evil skull face" inherently is. Marvel, though - bless 'em - doesn't care much for that old "camp". Well, they do, but they also care a lot about making characters who are real people with feelings and motivations and who are, y'know, emotionally resonant 'n such. Yeah, so, um, Red Skull: Incarnate, thusly, is one of the most stomach-churning books I've ever read.