It´s not like I have nothing else to read, I´m re - reading my BIBLIOTEKA MARVEL THOR issues with the big Celestial Saga where Thor meets Odin´s missing eye and the mistery of his mother is revealed. The story is so entertaining because Roy Thomas took all the elements of the Niebelungen saga and the elements from nordic folklore, added some giant space gods and a few pantheons and just put it through the blender.
Besides reading that I´m also finishing book 5 of the collected ANDRAX edition from CrossCult. But somehow I didn´t have the impulse to write.
Some of the stuff I kept myself busy with were :
fellow blog Collected Editions interviewed for Berliner Tagesspiegel
Collected Editions top 10 JLA trades
the reason why Uncle Scrooge is called Dagobert in Germany
business cards of superheroes ( and villains )
10 unforgettable tv christmases
playing blockbreaker - highly addictive !
I also watched a lot of stuff on YouTube. Some people may tell you that there´s nothing good on YouTube but that´s because they don´t know how to look for it.
In my last post I had already posted two clips from the PRISONERS OF GRAVITY series, one of them with comic legend Jack Kirby. Through a video posted on ComicBitsOnline ( Terry Hooper´s blog that I hope you are reading especially if you are interested in some british comics that also appeared in the german KOBRA comics ) I found another video about Jack Kirby. It´s a bit shorter but nevertheless interesting if you haven´t seen it before.
The next thing I found were the animated movies NEXT AVENGERS - THE HEROES OF TOMORROW and PLANET HULK. Now I didn´t like the NEXT AVENGERS movie because by making the main characters even younger than in the comic they totally ruined it. Yes, there are some people in marketing who may think that by making the main characters younger their target audience can identify better with them.
Which is totally untrue because when I was a kid reading comics I identified with my heroes even when they were 15 years older than me, had a lot more money and weren´t even spanish. I know that a lot of comic readers are campaigning for superheroes who have the same gender, ethnic background, appearance or sexual preference as them and I say that´s okay. The superhero universes try to reflect the real world and as such the more diverse the better. But I never was interested in such superficial things because I always was more concerned with what´s inside a hero. What makes him tick. Everything else are just labels and a lot of noise - meaning nothing.
On top of that it also makes no sense to let kids of that age endanger their lives by figthing crime. But the worst thing were the metal boob thingies on Thorgirl. That´s just sicker than lego Catwoman shaking her hips.
It cannot recommend this movie.
On the other hand I liked PLANET HULK movie much more, especially that they exchanged the Silver Surfer with Beta Ray Bill. It looks just too stupid when Norrin Radd uses his surfboard as a giant shield like those elves in Final Fantasy with the giant sword. But you can see for yourself. Here are the links ( as the embedding was disabled ) :
next avengers - heroes of tomorrow / planet hulk - part 1
Now since it´s Christmas in a few days you may still have to get some presents. This year I was thinking about give away some animated movies but then I decided to stick with comics. That´s quite predictable but that´s just how I am. But back when I was thinking about getting some animated movies I was considering the DC movies.
The last one I gave away as a present was GREEN LANTERN - FIRST FLIGHT and I really like that one.
Just last week I watched it again because I´m a bit anxious for the new GREEN LANTERN movie and it was as good as I remembered. My only problem is that DC does so many of these movies. UNDER THE RED HOOD is already out as well as the SUPERMAN / BATMAN - DOOMSDAY and ALL STAR SUPERMAN has already been announced.
With my small budget I´ll have to wait till they are in the DVD shops to rent. Now if you have a tiny budget for comics and other pop art things you may opt for the cheaper version of the DVDs. Because DC always does two versions. The only problem with that is that there are exclusive short films among the extras on the special editions. So, to make your decision easier ( or more difficult - who knows ) here are two of the short films that were included in UNDER THE RED HOOD ( Jonah Hex ) and in SUPERMAN / BATMAN - APOKALYPSE ( Green Arrow ).
What I also considered were the WATCHMEN motion comic and the TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGTHER movie ( I have forgotten which one comes with the UNDER THE HOOD documantary - nice segueway with the Batman animated movie by the way ). I wasn´t sure how good they were but even if I have some qualms about motion comics ( I ´ve seen some bad ones ) the WATCHMEN version looks pretty good. Sorry, I only could find the spanish version. Here´s the first part of the first chapter.
And here´s TALES FROM THE BLACK FREIGTHER - in german. My, aren´t we multilingual Today ? This is a pretty good film even if you keep in mind that it should be part of the regular WATCHMEN movie.
Now there are a few movies I would like to buy for Christmas presents but I can´t. Because I can´t find them anywhere or I didn´t think of them when I ordered the Christmas presents. The first is from the last category and it´s the classic 60s cartoon THE HULK. I couldn´t believe it but there are really DVDS of this out there at amazon, SATURN or Weltbild. In fact it´s a 2 DVD set that contains the entire series.
The HULK series does have a kind of cheesy intro but the art is based on the actual comicbook drawings by Jack Kirby. And the dialogue is from Stan Lee. Even if I didn´t know that as a kid I would have been tripping if that had shown this on german tv. And the animation looks like the motion comics that are so " vogue " Today. So, no, that is no new idea. So without any further ado ( as they said in those days ) Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you : the Space Phantom !
Now, if you begin to think : " Boy, this SUBZERO fella such has weird taste. " Then you haven´t seen nothing yet. Because my next pick would be NICK FURY : AGENT of S.H.I.E.L.D. starring David Hasselhoff in the lead role.
This may sound crazy but the more I see of the movie the more I want to see it. The Hoff is like Nick Fury if he had stepped out of a comicbook in this movie and they even use the old " We thought you were dead. " " I got better. " shtick. Here are 8 minutes from the movie.
And to top it all off here´s my number 1 pick for a Christmas present : Roland Emmerich´s Fantastic Four movie from 1991 ( with Roger Corman as executive producer so you might have heard of it as the roger Corman Fantastic Four movie ) that was never released for cinemas. Yes, the special effects are laughable from Today´s point of view but in every other aspect it´s pretty good. The actors looke like the Fantastic Four in the comic book, Ben Grimm really looks more like his printed version and they even pull off the original Dr. Doom costume. Something that none of the two new movies managed.
So that´s all for Today. I hope some of this helps you with your Christmas shopping and if not the deadline for the big Christmas contest hasn´t expired yet. There are still good chances of being in the top five judging by the entries I´ve received so far.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest
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