A.J. Maguire

Tag: Comics

  • Iron Man 3 – Review

    All right!  So we all know I’m a comic geek and it shouldn’t be a surprise that I totally dragged my son to go see Iron Man 3 today.

    I have adored Robert Downy Jr. as Iron Man and he did not disappoint in this third installment of the franchise.  In fact, his portrayal of Tony Stark felt even more genuine this time since the poor man was still recovering from the fight in Avengers.  We got to see him struggle with the understanding that he is not invincible, that he might not have what it takes to keep those important to him safe.

    As an author who pays attention to characters, this movie really exposed that struggle in a vivid way.  Also, we got to see Tony fighting without all his cool toys.    Granted, we got to see a LOT of his “toys” in the end, but during the rough middle — that point where the character has been stripped of everything — Tony had to sort of get back to basics.

    And I won’t lie, I totally adored that it was a kid who helped him figure that out.

    Now, I do admit that something felt a little off in the movie.  After a great deal of thought, I’m going to point at the music.  I missed heavy metal blaring out.  I understand they were showing a different side of Tony, that the character was changing and the movie needed to help reflect that, but … dude … Iron Man needs that oomph.

    Which brings me to my final point; Pepper.  I don’t want to spoil the movie (remember, I hate spoilers) but Pepper did something at the end of this movie that made me twitch.

    Please don’t get me wrong.  Pepper is a strong character.  She has to be in order to survive life with Tony Stark.  But that strength isn’t really reflected in a physical form.

    Now, I’m an author who writes female protagonists who kick serious butt.  I’m normally all for women getting gritty.  But that tendency has to be shown very early on.  The Pepper we’ve seen from the beginning wasn’t really like that, which is why this particular moment in the movie threw me off.

    So!

    All in all, I loved the movie.  I missed the music, but Tony’s journey was an excellent one to follow.

    And my son … Yeah, he just loved all the suits.  (He’s five.  He doesn’t get the whole “heroic journey” thing yet.)

  • Spider-Man (aka – Beware my Geek Side)

    It all started with my uncle.  He loved comics.  This love of comics spread from his children to my brother and, eventually, to me.  My brother, however, was the big Spider-Man lover.  He collected just about every offshoot of the bug-boy while we were growing up.  Thus, I gleaned quite a bit of information just from listening to him rave about Peter Parker.  

    When I learned a new Spider-Man was being made — as in, fresh from the start — I was torn.  I just didn’t think anyone could play the part of Peter Parker as good as Tobey Maguire did.  I mean, the dude was perfect.  He was so geeky and quiet, and he did a great deer-in-the-headlights impression whenever MJ (Mary-Jane) talked to him.

    That said, I loved Andrew Garfield’s rendition of Peter Parker.  I can’t say I can pick between either since I loved them both for different reasons.  Garfield’s Parker had more strength to him, making his jump from supreme-nerd to web-shooting superhero a little more believable.


    Plus, there’s the web thing.  Because in the original movies I was a little twitchy about the webs being a side-effect of the spider bite.  One of my favorite editions of Spider-Man was based off the simple plot device of letting those little web-shooters run out of steam.  Poor Spider-Man ran out of web mid-swing whilst trying to get home with spaghetti sauce (I think that was it — it was some kind of tomato sauce) and fell onto a rooftop.

    This did two things for me — it made Peter fallible without having to pit him up against a super-bad-mutant-or-otherwise-scientifically-enhanced-guy; and it gave me something to worry about.

    In the edition I’m referencing, Peter finds himself in a position where he believes he is dying.  (That might be a spoiler.  Sorry.  But the comic has been out for like … years now … so I don’t feel too bad.)  Anyway, his first thought is of none other than Gwen Stacey.  This is another spoiler, if you haven’t read the comics (or been related to someone who consumed them like they were necessary to their very existence like my brother did) but Gwen Stacey is kind of … er … doomed.

    Sorry.  But she is.  

    Because any Spider-Man geek will tell you that her death was a pivotal moment for Peter Parker’s character.  There are debates raging still about who was his true love — Gwen or Mary-Jane.  Personally, I’m a Gwen Stacey fan all the way.  (Yes, it’s totally like the comic-realm fight of Team Gwen vs. Team MJ.)

    So, while I enjoyed the original three with Tobey Maguire running about in spandex, this new Amazing Spider-Man put right some of the things that were done a little wrong.  We got the web-shooters.  We got Gwen Stacey.  And … yeah, we got Dennis Leary.  

  • Geeking Out

    These past few years have been wonderful for my Geekdom.  First there was Iron Man, then Iron Man 2, then Thor, then Captain America … and finally, Marvel Avengers.  Seriously.  I’ve been in heaven.

    But I did miss out watching X-Men First Class in the theaters.  Luckily for me, I was able to snag a copy of my own and watched it tonight.  I’ll admit to a bit of trepidation walking into another X-Men film.  Story-wise, the previous X-Men films were sound (and by that I mean the plots made sense and came to logical conclusions), they just weren’t … well … they just weren’t the X-Men I had grown up with.  Rogue, for example, was one of my all-time favorite characters and … yeah.  It just didn’t jive for me.

    Though I confess Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was brilliant.  (Never has a man looked so good with so much hair.)

    What drew me to X-Men : First Class — aside from the fact that it was the X-Men — was really James McAvoy.  I’ve loved that actor since Children of Dune.  I would faint if the man ever read one of my works for an audiobook production.  (Which, by the way, is a crap ton more work than you would imagine.  I’ve been running Deviation through practice runs just in case I do give it out on iTunes for free as a podiobook, and it’s a headache and a half.)

    Anyway, Mr. McAvoy has a very distinctive voice.  And when I saw him as Professor Charles Xavier, I got a little weak-kneed.  Professor X absolutely has to have a distinctive voice.  Why do you think they chose Patrick Stewart to play the role in the other films?  Now there’s a man with a voice you can’t forget!

    So, McAvoy lured me into this new X-Men movie and I loved it.  The tension between characters was wonderful, and I admit that I was rooting for Magneto in places where I probably oughtn’t to have been.  But then again, the really compelling part of the X-Men for me as a reader had always been the struggle with prejudice.  So even in the comics I was often rooting for Magneto … or at least rooting for a way that there might be a peaceful resolution for his character.

    But anyway, this is me geeking out.  I loved the movie.  And I loved the Avengers, too.  (I took my son to see it on opening weekend and it really is a riot.)