Time to take a look at some more random superhero movies.

Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer — I can’t really comment on the first movie, since I’ve never seen it all the way through. Not that I haven’t had my opportunities: it was an in-flight movie during a particularly long international trip, and I did my best to avoid it. However, I did see the second movie at a drive-in. Ugh. So the Stan Lee cameo was awesome (and surprisingly, actually canon), but the rest was pretty blah and forgettable. And how could they screw up Dr. Doom so badly? He’s the greatest supervillain in all Marvel, for Pete’s sake! He wore a mask and cape long before Darth Vader made it the symbol of villainy! Gah! Rating: 2/5

Superman — Was and still is the pinnacle of superhero movies. There is absolutely nothing I can say that’s bad about it, so I’m not going to even try. Heck, most origin stories are pretty rote and tedious; here, it’s the best part in the entire movie! Sure, Superman travelling faster than the speed of light to go back in time was a little cheesy, but he was always pulling stuff like that off in the comic books. You just had to stick “Super” behind a verb, and voila! new superpowers. Don’t underestimate the giddy imagination of the Silver Age. Rating: 5/5

Batman Returns — There has been a movement recently that this was the best Batman movie before Batman Begins. And I scratch my head. Why? This was an utterly joyless exercise where you didn’t even feel like really rooting for the hero at all and left you wondering if Penguin wasn’t right to have the entire city destroyed. This is the movie where Catwoman is thrown out of a window and as a result develops cat-like powers (including, as it is suggested at the end, a cat’s nine lives). Sure, it looks a lot better in comparison to the Shumaker sequels, but c’mon. Batman Returns was as needlessly dour as Batman & Robin was as needlessly ridiculous. And at least the latter had some laughable “cold” puns delivered by the Governor of California. Rating: 2/5

Batman & Robin — unfortunately, THIS is the worst movie of all time, superhero or otherwise. I get some joy nowadays from Arnie’s horribly ridiculous one-liners (”What killed the dinosaurs? The Ice Age”), but that’s all. Everything else about this movie is so bad that you just want to take a claw-hammer and smash every existing reel, VHS, and DVD on the market. The unnecessary addition of Batgirl. The Hockey Team from Hell. The fact that Mr. Freeze was one of the most sympathetic villains on the Animated Series, and the movie just ruined him. Then you want to go down to TBS (the Superstation) and demand that they stop airing this movie 24/7. Only then will the nightmares stop. Rating: 0/5

Supergirl — You know, I must have seen this movie at least three times in my lifetime, and I can’t remember a single thing about it. IMDB says Peter O’Toole was in it, so I’ll have to take their word of it. Wasn’t there some kind of witch who turned into a monster in the end? Or am I thinking of Enchanted? Gosh, that Amy Adams has such a wonderful screen presence doesn’t she? And that movie was absolutely robbed at Oscar time. I realize I’m not talking much about Supergirl, but it was so utterly forgettable that there isn’t much to talk about. Rating: 1/5

Mystery Men — It’s too bad that this movie bombed at the box office, because it isn’t terrible at all. Maybe they were doing too hard to make the superheroes low rent and the villains too ridiculous. Maybe the source material was too obscure: even comic geeks don’t immediately recall side characters from The Flaming Carrot. Maybe it’s because parodies of superheroes rarely do well on the big screen (which shoots down my hopes and dreams of seeing the Great Lakes Avengers movie). I came across one comment, though, that easily pinpointed where the movie went off the rails: when Captain Amazing dies, and it’s the Mystery Men’s fault. I love dark humor as much as anyone, but when the good guys screw up this badly, it makes me think that they should quit before more people get killed. (However, I’d heard a rumor somewhere that “Captain Amazing” was originally going to be The Flaming Carrot. If that was the case, then the death would be much more awesome. Stupid vegetables.) Rating: 3/5

Wow. I just ran across a forum post by a fellow who goes by the handle of “glorbes.” Apparently, he does custom action figures. But … he doesn’t just do custom figures, he blesses them with his own retro touch. Check these babies out:

Flash and Captain Cold

Wonder Woman in ancient armor

The Justice Society: Dr. Mid-Nite, Dr. Fate, and The Sandman

The Blue Beetle, looking very much like a pulp hero

The original concept art for Hans Solo and a re-imagined Chewbacca

Check out Iron-Cow Prod. for more of these Glorbes customs. There are several other gems in there, including an Adam West Batman, a Victorian-era Blade, and a female Luke Skywalker.

Recently, I’ve been very interested in kid-friendly comic books for several reasons. First, my fiancee likes to read books, but she grew up on Archies. Second, she’s a schoolteacher, and she likes to pass the comic books we’ve read to her pre-school to 1st grade students as a reward. Last week, she was passing around a copy of “Marvel Adventures” that we picked up on Free Comic Book Day to the delight of her students. Man, and I thought kids didn’t care anymore, what with their video games and their manga.

The third reason is the most important: I think there’s a lost art in being able to tell fun stories without resorting to gratuitous violence. Sure, superheroes were never shy to introduce villains to their fists, but there was always more a sense of adventure than punishment or vengeance. Batman, who may have one of the darkest back stories in comics, was still more of an Errol Flynn daredevil in the old stories up until Frank Miller got a hold of him. There’s nothing wrong with dark, brooding heroes, but lately it seems that they’ve been dominating every comic book these days.

That’s why I decided on this “Comics, Are They For Kids Anymore?” series. I’m looking for comics that are fun and imaginative, yet don’t insult the intelligence of young kids. In other words, the comic version of “Harry Potter” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Strangely enough, the first comic on my list is the one starring the superhero with some of comicdom’s most violent powers: Wolverine.

“Wolverine: First Class” is part of Marvel’s “First Class” imprint. “X-Men: First Class” saw a revisionist take on the days when all the X-Men wore the blue and gold, and when Beast was simply a guy with oversized hands and feet. “Wolverine: First Class” fast forwards to the Claremont years, when a little Mary Sue named Kitty Pryde won the hearts of comic book geeks everywhere. Starting at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Kitty feels a sympathetic kinship toward the similarly out-of-place curmudgeon, Wolverine. While Kitty’s out of place because she’s a normal girl in a world of gods and goddesses and demons, Wolvie stands alone from the group mainly because he’s a loner. While the two are at odds with each other, they quite quickly develop a mentor/student, father/daughter relationship.

Kitty is better portrayed as a teenage girl here than she was in her original incarnation. The second issue, for example, sees her scheming to get into the “Dazzler” concert. (And this is disco rollerblad Dazzler, not the Ultimates punk rock Dazzler.) She’s a fan, sure, but she wants to secure a limo just so she can show up the other girls in dance class. Wolvie is portrayed as his more recent incarnation — that as a lovable, grumpy guy rather than the more mellow Clint Eastwood type from the 80’s run. (One of my favorite parts? Wolvie is called to take a mission, and he grumbles that he won’t be able to catch the Leafs-Penguins game on TV.)

Despite the rather bloody nature of Wolvie’s powers, the comic never indulges in violent scenes. His battle with Sabretooth, for example, results in a series of closed punches rather than the unsheathing of the three blades of fury.

Still, it’s a very fun series so far, and the emphasis is on the Kitty-Wolvie relationship and adventure. Reading “Wolverine: First Class” was like reading one of the Marvel Comics from the 1960’s without the grandstanding villains and the naivete. I can’t wait to see these comics pass into the hands of eager kids.

After totally jonesing on the Iron Man movie, and then hitting the shops on Free Comic Book Day, I just cannot take my mind off of superheroes and superhero movies in general. The last couple of days, my girlfriend and I have been discussing back and forth how and Avengers movie would look, and when in the world will a Wonder Woman movie come out? (She’s thinking Hillary Swank would be perfect, while I cast my discerning eye at Summer Glau.) So to help get it out of my system, here’s a look at some superhero movies past. Sit back and reminisce with me, won’t you?

Batman (1966) — So before they turned him all dark and gritty (which is how I like the consistency of my basement flooring), Batman was running around in ill-fitting tights that looks like something sewed together for the San Diego Comic Con. Modern movie-goers like to complain when a movie features more than one villain, as if one villain per superhero movie was a hard and fast rule. The 60’s Batman movie featured four, and they were played by top-notch actors like Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero. Unfortunately, the movie was actually more corny than the TV show for some reason. By the way, Batman pioneered the whole “the longer the gag goes, the funnier it gets” humor card when trying to dispose of a comically oversized novelty bomb without harming innocent little ducks. Suck on that, Family Guy! Rating: 3/5

Hulk — I don’t hate Ang Lee. In fact, I rather enjoyed Sense & Sensibility. But the Hulk movie was such a big, ponderous mess that Marvel had to reboot the franchise and start all over again in record time. Some people — mostly hipsters — are convinced that the mope-fest is a hallmark of superhero cinema, touching on psychological issues that few of these testosterone-fests fail to touch. To which I say: please explain away the last 15 minutes of the movie. You know, when Hulk’s dad turned into a jellyfish. Besides, hipsters are the kind of people that like terrible things just because it’s ironic, so their judgment should never be considered gospel by anyone. Rating: 2/5

X-Men 3 — Screw the haters. I really liked this movie. Sure, it has its flaws, but on the whole I felt it was more cinematic than the previous two entries. The first movie felt a little claustrophobic with its set pieces. The second was Weapon X heavy, and I’ve always hated those stories in the comics. (And I don’t particularly hate Wolvie, either.) But the third finally captured a lot of the spirit of the X-Men comic books. The long lines of mutants being pelted by protesters. Mageto introducing himself to a bunch of freaks at what looks like the Tenderloin in SF. Juggernaut calling Kitty Pryde a female dog. Some of the action was confusing, sure, but aren’t most comic books? Rating: 4/5

The Shadow — Um… I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world who saw this movie. It was release around the time the 1989 Batman movie was spearheading the first wave of super-mania, which also resulted in The Phantom movie and the Mystery Men. I don’t remember much about this movie except that Alex Balwin was supposed to be a Mongolian or a Chinese man, which he most definitely is not. Rating: 2/5

Spawn — This is the sort of movie where you look back and absolutely hate everything that made you anticipate it in the first place. When it came out, Image Comics was sort of this rebel outfit that stood up for creator rights and gave the big middle finger to the Big Two. Now I see them as a bunch of sniping prima-donnas and the main perpetrators of the 1990’s “extreme” aesthetic to the detriment of storytelling. Todd McFarlane was seen as a regular joe with a strong creativity streak instead of some iracible multi-millionaire who sells toys, designs ugly hockey logos, and purchases overpriced baseball paraphenalia. And then we have the Spawn movie, a dark, lifeless movie that ends in the most confusing showdowns with Satan ever committed to CGI. Rating: 1/5

Spider-Man — I remember reading in the 80’s where the big thing was to have Spidey fight some sort of cosmic threat. There were similar stories when James Cameron was attached to this movie. So it’s always been a wonder that this movie turned out to be so right. My personal hallmark, though, is when the movie first shows us the curmudgeonly editor of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson. In the theater, you could hear the widespread gasps when everyone stared at the screen in collective recognition. It’s the sort of nerd-joy that won’t be felt until the post-credit sequence in this year’s Iron Man. Rating: 5/5

Blade 2 — Despite some super-cheezy special effects (like when Wesley spilts a villain in two), this is a fine vampire movie that had enough heartbreaking betrayals and twists to keep it interesting. Too bad it will be best known for Harry Knowles’ sad, sad perversions and how they ruined AICN. Rating: 4/5

I’m not posting to rub salt in wounds. I just have to say that the Avs-Wings series was one of the least satisfying wins I’ve seen.

It didn’t seem fair. The Avs were crippled going into the series. The first round, I almost exclusively watched the Minnesota Wild-Colorado Avalanche series, mainly because it was the most brutal of all the first round match-ups. Now I see that it really knocked the wind out of the Avs.

Some of the post-game interviews with the Wings players seemed rather apologetic. Like they wanted to beat the Avs, but not like that. And it’s an inglorious way to end the Sakic era, should he decide to retire.

Again, as a Wings fan, I’ll take the win. But the thing in jeopardy, of course, is the greatest rivalry in the history of hockey. If it has to come to an end, it was sad to see it end like this. A tired, beaten down Avs squad taken down by the relentless Yankees of hockey.

Hey, we’ll always have the Patrick Roy-Mike Vernon/Chris Osgood beatdown at center ice, won’t we? Good times.

Morning all. Last night, I was at what possibly was the last game the SuperSonics basketball team would play in Seattle. (The owners are adamant about moving the team to Oklahoma City, and may do so by the start of the next season.)

Key Arena was absolutely crazy. I’ve been to three games this year watching marquee teams, and this was the loudest the arena has been all year.

The arena was punctuated by loud cheers of “Save Our Sonics” (including a long sustained one after a timeout was called with 1.4 seconds left in the 4th quarter). There was a huge standing ovation of Sonics veteran Gary Payton who was watching the game in the stands. The arena was filled with a larger-than-usual security staff in case of riot. Fans carried banners and signs, including an enigmatic one that said “Boycott Starbucks!” (Starbucks having sold the team to the Oklahoman owner).

There was an ethereal feeling in the last few seconds that everything was happening in slow motion — especially since the Sonics only won by 4 points at the end. A fast break where Durant ran across the court for the layup to seal the win … surreal. The cheers were deafening. Bear in mind that the Sonics are the worst team in the Western Conference at the moment, and their opponent, the Dallas Mavericks, are playoff bound. So to end everything for the fans with a rare win… that was special.

I’m usually a Pistons fan, but I switched allegiances for one year only to support the local team. It’s tough to see so many people who have followed the local team for so long see their team taken away from under their noses.

OK, so I’m probably visiting fanfiction.net more than I should, but seriously…

… there’s 3:10 To Yuma fanfiction? What next, a No Country for Old Men slashfic?

As a wrestling fan, I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite clips of all time … and it just happened recently at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony.

Finally, the ROCK … HAS COME BACK … to the WWE!

I especially love his shout outs to Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mick Foley. Those three were the great trifecta that powered the WWE in its Attitude era.

And, well… after viewing this, there is no denying that what was once a villainous boast was actually the truth: the Rock really is the most entertaining man in sports entertainment.