12-29-09

--------At 10:15 on Christmas morning my girlfriend and I were in the theaters catching the latest Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law. Now I would have gotten around to writing this review sooner however I had some very important TV to watch on Christmas day and worked doubles all weekend. So I am getting to it now.

--------Now I have never been the biggest Sherlock Holmes fan, so I am not going to be able to compare this movie to previous movies or to any books for that matter. One observation I can make however is I don’t recall Sherlock Holmes being such a bad ass. This incarnation of Sherlock Holmes seemed to be able to whoop all the ass. He did have some problems with a seven-foot tall French dude, but he did go toe to toe with him and all lesser men were but minor inconveniences on Sherlock Holmes’ path to the facts. I am serious this dude was like a straight up open hand master. He was like a fifteenth level monk. Lets put it into proper perspective here. Batman would definitely kick his ass, but he could probably give Daredevil a run for his money. So again I don’t have the same frame of reference as a true hard core Sherlock Holmes but this does seem to be a departure from the impression I always had of Sherlock Holmes.

--------But hey, what the hell? I like movies with a lot of ass kicking. So it worked out for me. I would say that the art direction in this movie is where it excelled. Every background was rich and dynamic. Watching this movie put me in what I imagine to be a real turn of the century London frame of mind. Which is, lets face it, a nice place to visit but to grimy to live in.

--------What didn’t seem to be that present in the movie was the Sherlock Holmes super sleuthing. My impression of the movie was of Holmes and Watson running, jumping, fighting and one-lining their way through till the very end. At which point Holmes unleashes a built up explosion of super sleuthing insight and then back to the fighting/exploding format

--------Speaking of Christmas, My girl and I had a nice mellow one this year. We caught Sherlock Holmes. Then we watched about five episodes of Smallville season one. Props to Crysta and Matt, our neighbors who own the whole series on DVD. I never got into this show before, however with access to all the DVDs and none of the commercials we have started a full retrospective. Christmas day ended with losses by my two favorite sport franchises. The Titans and The Lakers. That kinda sucked but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

--------This week I picked up the latest Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Dark Avengers, Fall of the Hulks Alpha, Siege: The Cabal, and caught up on the Mighty and New Avengers. First I read the Hulks. Hulk 18 was a yawner. There was no Red Hulk. There was no Green Hulk. There was no son of Hulk. There was only Doc Sampson, and he was not smashing anything. There was only talking. And in the end we are left with dark Doc Sampson. Whatever.

--------Incredible Hulk 605 definitely had more smash in it. We got Bruce Banner; we got Skaar with the Hulk-Sword; we got the fantastic Four; we got The Mole Man; we got Tyrannus; and we got more monsters from Sakaar than you can shake a stick at. What it was lacking was the Hulkage. This was a fun little diversion but it is time to bring the Hulk back, make him smart again and start up where we left off at the end of World War Hulk.

--------Dark Avengers 12 was pretty cool. It was the conclusion to the Molecule Man – Dark Avengers showdown. Of course it ended the way most big Dark Avengers fights end, with Sentry coming back from whatever kept him out of most of the fight and PWNING the shit out of the bad guys. This time it was Molecule Man disintegrating him that kept him out of the fight. We have seen Sentry pull himself together before. Still the Dark Avengers remains a well-written story that I am always putting on top of my stack of books to read.

--------Fall of the Hulks Alpha and Siege: The Cabal were very similar in the fact that they were both a lot of buildup. I am anticipating both storylines, however I am sure Marvel will find a way to drag it out. They always do. One treat however is we finally learn whom it was that created the Red Hulk. You can find that little tidbit in Fall of the Hulks Alpha.

--------Of the three Avengers titles that I read The Mighty Avengers is the one that captures the essence of the original Avengers comic. The current storyline involves a team up with the Chinese equivalent of the Avengers against some nameless uber powerful Inhuman dude. As a side story we get to explore the new Infinite Avengers Mansion. This place is pretty damn cool. It resides in a pocket universe with doors that attach to an infinite amount of places on the Earth. I wouldn’t mind a pad like that.

--------The Mighty Avengers does seem to focus quite a bit on Hank Pym. Now I never thought Pym was necessarily the most awesome super hero on the scene. Ultimate Hank Pym was a straight up wife beating douche bag. One thing you gotta give him though is he is a dynamic ever-changing character. There have been some pretty cool incarnations of Hank Pym over the years. My personal favorite was in the eighties when he was not using a super hero name. He was just Hank Pym and he could no longer shrink or grow because all the exposure to Pym Particles over the years was fucking up his body. Anyways he had wristbands with little pouches that contained all kinds of gadgetry. Everything was shrunken down using Pym Particles and grew to full size when whipped out. Actually that incarnation is pretty similar to what we got going on with Bruce Banner right now.

--------So in The Mighty Avengers 30 Hank Pym grows so large that he expands outside of Eternity. You know Eternity he is that freaky looking dude with Galaxies swirling across his shirt. Well Hank and Eternity have a sit down where Eternity declares Pym Earth’s Scientist Supreme. So now of course it’s Hanks time to shine. It is looking like issue 31 will wrap up the current story line so I am anticipating that.

--------I didn’t have the time to catch up on the New Avengers this week. So I will get to that for the next column. Until next week I hope you all had an awesome Yule and may Thor place a mighty blessing upon thee.