The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 1986
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While I’m loathe to say anything nice about Chris Claremont, especially in an issue where he apes dialogue from Little Big Man to show how conscious he is to the plight of Native Americans regarding the John Wayne cavalry movies, he almost does a good issue here. Well, maybe not. I mean, the Beyonder’s still…
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So the Beyonder got all bent out of shape because of his failed encounter with Puma… (Puma was supposed to kill him, according Puma’s tribe’s legends) and spends this entire issue moping. Oh, he gets in a fight with the X-Men–unfortunately he doesn’t kill them, which doesn’t fit, since he’s enraged and that Rachel Summers…
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As far as lame battles go, I think Puma vs. Beyonder–actually continuing it–is about as lame as you can get. Maybe it’s just Priest’s writing (The issue credits Priest, online says Peter David wrote it. Hmm. Who’s really at fault?). I usually like it, but here it’s tired. Between the blabbering thought balloons (for every…
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Um. I never read The New Defenders so I don’t really know what the deal is with this issue, given it’s the final issue and it resolves a bunch of New Defenders stuff–is Valkyrie still dead and was Manslaughter supposed to be gay? I also didn’t know there were so many X-Men in the New…
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Say what one may about Romita’s artwork, but damn if he doesn’t draw the cutest little feet on the Beyonder the last issue? Does Secret Wars II really boil down to penis envy? Similarly, even with Claremont’s awful writing–he really thought he needed to explain Cerebro to readers in an endless expository thought balloon–he does…
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I probably grew up on Tom DeFalco’s Spider-Man and never even knew it. All I think of when I hear the name now is Spider-Girl and that’s about it. I guess I did read another DeFalco Secret Wars II crossover Spider-Man issue and the result was me thinking I should read more. This issue just…
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I mustn’t have ever picked up a New Mutants comic as a kid when I was getting Secret Wars II crossovers. I think I’d remember being this totally perplexed. Claremont’s approach to this title is apparently to throw everything he can think of into the issue, up to and including a floating subway car (and…
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The Beyonder sits around this entire issue. What fun. Mephisto plots against the entirely passive Beyonder–who doesn’t even speak a full paragraph until the final two panels–while the Thing is basically the main hero in the issue. Not surprisingly, Shooter doesn’t discuss Mephisto’s apparent homosexual relationship with the now-male Death. I guess Mephisto hasn’t checked…
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So apparently Christopher Priest could always write. This issue of Power Man and Iron Fist makes me wish I had the rest of the series, or at least Priest’s work on it. The really strong part about the comic is how well Priest paints the ranges of characters’ motivations. When S.H.I.E.L.D. is about to blow-up…
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Is this my first issue of Thor? It might be, at least as an adult. I thought there was a miniseries I read, but probably not. I’ve always just assumed they sucked. I mean, I don’t all of a sudden love Thor or something; it’s still really wordy and obnoxious and not even when it’s…
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People actually read this comic? I mean, I couldn’t understand a single word of it. It’s got an insane continuity to follow, but you also have to be able to translate Gillis’s writing into narrative. It’s just a bunch of events, without any connecting scenes, over and over again. All in one comic book. It’s…
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Power Pack might be one of those ludicrously irresponsible titles–really, the kids skip school to go on vindictive, violent rampages (if Millar had the Power Pack kids kill a bunch of other kids by accident in Civil War, well, that one would be something)–but it’s got Brent Anderson artwork so I’m not sure I really…
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I can’t believe Marvel didn’t relaunch Cloak and Dagger during the Bush years. It’s a neo-con wet dream (complete with discreet racism, with Cloak being the evil black, corrupting Dagger, and cops beating witnesses). This issue is, I think, my first Cloak and Dagger ever. I wasn’t missing much. They’re both really annoying. She’s holier…
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The Delta Force is… 1) the only Chuck Norris movie my mom let me watch as a kid (I think it’s the only Chuck Norris movie I’ve ever seen). 2) “the most homoerotic movie I’ve ever seen,” according to my wife. 3) somewhat interesting for the first forty-five minutes. The Delta Force stars four Academy…
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Jimmy Smits is pretty good in Running Scared. He’s a believable bad guy, intimidating even. I don’t know why I’m opening with Smits, maybe because I’m in a good mood and want to be generous with praise for an unlikely recipient. Running Scared is a delightful action comedy; I didn’t realize how much I missed…
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Half Moon Street is supposed to be funny, right? No one’s supposed to believe it’s serious, they can’t. Certainly not with Sigourney Weaver’s performance–it’s got to be the worst thing she’s ever done, but it’s amazing because she certainly never gave the impression she’s capable of such an atrocious performance. The script’s full of these…
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Maximum Overdrive confuses me a little. I thought–given the movie opens with the writer and director being insulted by a cash machine–Stephen King wasn’t going for anything… well, artistic is a stretch, so maybe genuine. Almost immediately following is a scene where a bunch of watermelons crash into car windshields to humorous effect. It certainly…
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High concept action has Christopher Lambert as an immortal Scottish sword fighter who has to fight other immortal sword fighters. Film splits between flashbacks to the Scottish Highlands where Sean Connery shows up to train Lambert and then the present where Lambert has to fight Clancy Brown. Suffers from being a dumb idea poorly written…
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It’d be interesting to know how much of the relationship between Howard and Lea Thompson got toned down, like if Huyck and Katz originally had them more visibly romantically involved. It wouldn’t be interesting to see cut scenes or even to read old drafts of the script, it’d just be interesting to know. Seeing cut…
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The Morning After is an awkward combination of thriller and adult drama. As a thriller, with Paul Chihara’s enthusiastic and bombastic score, it’s frequently annoying. Jane Fonda can scrub a crime scene of every thread of evidence, but the simple things–like dropping a succeeding lie or leaving all her personal belongings for the police to…
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The last time I watched Manhunter (the first time I saw the director’s cut), my friend maintained the film’s superiority laid in the added scenes. The director’s cut mostly features more scenes concerning the effect of manhunting serial killers on William Petersen’s character. On this viewing, it’s clear the film’s greatness isn’t so simply assigned.…
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Clocking in at a whopping ninety minutes, Ruthless People feels a tad undercooked. Lots of trailer-ready sequences, lots of memorable moments, nothing to really connect them. The ZAZ directing team (it’s probably been sixteen years since I’ve thought about them) is adequate, but they don’t really direct actors very well here, so the casting goes…
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About ten minutes in to F/X, I got wondering how the film was going to deal with being a special effects-filled film about a guy doing special effects for films. I suppose they didn’t have to deal with that relationship, but it kept seeming more and more like they were going to need to address…
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Last Resort is not a bad movie in any traditional way. It’s incompetent to the degree I don’t understand–nor can I imagine–how Charles Grodin ended up starring in it. Julie Corman–Roger’s wife–produced the film and, maybe, her attention to detail is why it looks like the film shot in Southern California for most of its…
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About halfway through 8 Million Ways to Die, I realized–thanks to a boom mike–my twenty year-old laserdisc was open matte, not pan and scan. The widescreen zoomed suddenly made the shots tighter and crisper, regaining Ashby’s usually calmness. I suppose I should have stopped and went back to the beginning to see if it made…
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I was just reading–today or yesterday–Ken Levine talk about how there are no “balls-out R-rated” comedies with female leads. (His post is here). Jumpin’ Jack Flash is, obviously, a balls-out R-rated comedy starring a woman. Things have obviously changed in the last twenty years, both in film and television–female stand-ups don’t get TV shows and…
The Stop Button 