Film Review: Avengers Infinity War

So it's hard to fully review this movie without spoilers, but I'll start off with the spoiler free summary: Avengers Infinity War is definitely worth seeing, and is part one of the two-part big payoff of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The part one part is really important, as this movie ends on a cliffhanger that guarantees people will be back this time next year to see how things resolve.

The movie manages to simultaneously pay out for the hardcore fans of the movies, as many, many moving parts all slide together into the grand, unifying plot we've been waiting for. That said, if you've not been paying too much attention, or catching every film, this one is still going to work for you; it's stand alone story element holds its own, and even if you have no idea where the infinity stones have been showing up in prior movies (or why) this movie doesn't require that a priori knowledge.

Oddly, one of the most interesting characters in the movie was Thanos himself. Marvel finally has a villain no one can complain about, and this works well; the narrative on Thanos and why he is doing what he does makes him a more compelling and ultimately interesting villain.

So yeah...solid A, absolutely.

Beyond that? Spoilers, lots of spoilers. Actually, I'll try not to spoil things, but I will make the following oblique observations:

1. There's more than one interesting cameo in here, and in particular (you'll know who when you see the scene) that was kind of a "Wow holy cow look who just showed up" moment.

2. This movie HAD to come out right as my kid, in his mid sixes, is developing a strong sense of the concept of mortality.* I saw it on a special preview, but the whole family goes tomorrow and I need to brace my wife for the fact that before this movie is over he's very likely to be streaming tears and snot at certain deaths in this film. It's gonna be rough.

3. The movie politely subverts expected deaths, even as it surprises us with more than a couple unexpected deaths. Then there's....well, a damned good cliff hanger, we'll just say that.

4. Thor had a surprisingly good heroic arc, a sort of fall and redemption, then return to power. Which was good, because like the first five minutes of the movie completely negate any victory garnered at the end of Thor: Ragnarok.

5. No Hawkeye? I thought Hawkeye was going to be at least cameoing.

6. Implied and direct nods to the notion that Scarlet Witch is actually one of Earth's most powerful beings.

FRIDAY REPORT: The family viewing was today. Kiddo handled it better than I expected, although I gave him a pep talk about how this was a sad movie, with some sad things, and then he told me as long as Spider Man didn't die he'd be fine....anyway long story short the ending was perhaps just a bit metaphysical in a sense so it left him sad but not in a streaming snot kinda way (whew) despite ...ahh.....all that stuff that went down at the end (um, trying not to be spoilery). But the overall impact on the total crowd, which had a LOT of kids in it was almost palpable...tears, cries of shock, etc. etc. only the old jaded comic fans were "unmoved." The youn 'uns who haven't gotten used to how these sorts of stories work were genuinely shocked/traumatized/surprised/horrified, etc.




*I found this out the hard way. I bought the animated film "Batman: Escape from Arkham" which I did not realize was quite as adult and violent as it was, but the problem came when my kid immediately bonded with the Black Spider character, who later dies an ignominious death in the movie. My son was devastated, crying, and a couple days later told me I am never to mention that Black Spider died, ever. Period. So.....when you see a movie like Infinity War, as an old comics veteran how do I impart to my son the wisdom that no comic death is ever really permanent? Hmmmm.

Synchonizing Media - the Marvel Example

This is not something DC quite has down, which is surprising, considering how venerable their characters are, but after reading up on the Marvel comics universe over the last several months and re-watching the movies with my son, it's become clear that Marvel's connection to Disney is stronger than one might imagine....it's subtle, but very, very deep. Specifically, it's the branding, and the "identity" of the Marvel Universe that's at the forefront of it all.

Given that I've only returned to Marvel comics recently, it's possible for some this is old news, but as I have played a lot of catch-up on titles from around 2006 to current it's easy to notice some interesting trends. The biggest trend (aside from Marvel relying on Brian Michael Bendis to deconstruct and write the entire friggin' line of comics, more or less) is to sycnhronize the film mediaverse with the comic universe. As a result, we have a trend in which characters, situations and themes in the comic start to resonate with the film versions of the characters. Nick Fury is awesome as Samuel L. Jackson, a significant improvement over the Hasselhoff edition of the old Nick Fury, who has now gone into retirement (mostly) in the comics, to be replaced by his son he never knew he had, who is now officially the new Nick Fury Jr. Not precisely the same origin as the movie version, but similar enough to avoid confusion for fans of the movie who return to the comic, I guess.

Hawkeye gets a suit that's more suited to his film counterpart (but there's a suggestion the older look will return on film, ironically). Black Widow is a much more interesting character now because of her film representation than she ever was in the comics. Captain America in the comics was the champion of "violence without slaughter" but even that has been corroded a bit as the films amply demonstrate the oddity of a guy who's literally a super soldier trained in the heart of World War II to get the job done, no matter how many dead nazis lie in his wake.

About the only character to not get a severe make-over is Tony Stark, alias Iron Man. Sure, his personality in the comics sounds and feels more and more like the Downey Jr. version (which of course was the quintessential extrapolation of the original pre-movie Iron Man, but with better hamming it up per scene)...but the Marvel version has gone off the deep end as the guy who not only solves problems but often causes them (Civil War) and regularly does super science craziness that even makes the comic universe look a little wacko (Dyson sphere construction, anyone?)

But, and this is something you have to have been reading Marvel a long time to notice....the Marvel universe has gotten very, very tight. The stories are long and detailed, and usually span convenient measurements of 6 to 12 issue story arcs, enough to fill up a TPB release or two. If there is a conceivable way to tie characters into the Avengers it is done. If they don't fit there they make it to the X-Men series. X-Men are a little "out there" these days but that's okay, they don't need to worry about having it all make sense for the film universe, since they aren't tied in to the Marvel continuity of movies. But the Avengers? Definitely.

Downsides to this trend of tight storytelling are a tendency to forget to make the less well known characters much more than props. The number of stories I've read over the last five years' worth of comics appear to all tie to Ultron, Thanos, Kang, and mirror-universe variants of the key characters. The number of time travel stories I have read is so ridiculous that it makes the 52 universes of DC look positively mundane by comparison. And all of this appears to be to keep the comics in interesting holding patterns, to test themes for interest in the bigger media, and to provide themes for forthcoming film releases.

Even Scarlett Witch is back with the Uncanny Avengers (prep for Avengers: Age of Ultron?), and I still haven't read the book which convinced me that anyone would think that was a good idea after her House of M madness. Must still be on my reading list....

So the Marvel universe is simultaneously riddled with high-concept storytelling but also seems to have an alarming tendency to do horrible things to their characters before "resetting the clock" to insure things don't deviate too much. The Disney IP branding methodology seems stronger and more firmly in place than I might have ever imagined it.

But....it could just be me. Next time I'll talk about the wacko timeline of the Marvel Universe, and the interesting ways the writers mess with it (especially Bendis, that mad genius!)

Unfettered! On Comics, and Other Stuff

Free to write whatever I feel like for the first time in three months --following February's Savage Worlds in Space Daily, March's 13 Days of 13th Age and April's 30 days of B/X D&D....gah!-- I now have may resume writing whatever springs to mind at any given moment, including boring blog posts where I talk about not much at all.

Hidden behind the focused run for three months has been my secret "actual focus" going on in real life: comics. Lots and lots of comics. My years-long drought of staying away from the medium of comics is at an end, and thoroughly staked through the heart now. I have hoarded so many graphic novels, so many series both current and past that I accidentally booked my comic reading for the next couple of years, I think.

Hoarding is a problem that runs in my family. I like to think my manifestion of it is more benign, albeit expensive at times.

Given that I'm now subbing (via the local Comics Warehouse) to around 20 or so titles (maybe more) on top of the heaping mounds of graphic novels I have acquired, I think I have more than enough to sustain me through to the point at which I snap and get tired of it all again. Assuming I reach that point...I actually love comics as a medium, but the price point over the years reached a critically dangerous "dollars to fun" ratio that regular novels, RPGs and video games seriously outstripped. Now, thanks to the generous price point of many graphic novels (DC's pricing is very nice for its New 52 books) as well as judicious use of Ebay and Amazon it is once again possible to buy TPBs without feeling guilty, or like I should be shoveling all this money into my retirement. Even though I probably should.

So it is with all this discussion that I am implying, but not announcing, that I may be talking a lot about what's going on in comics these days. It may not all be current.....I am really enjoying catching up on the complete Brian Michael Bendis run of New Avengers, for example (acquired the New Avengers Omnibus I for about $35 on Ebay....over 1,000 pages in the damned thing!) but it's quickly becoming apparent to me that Marvel really owes Bendis for making them so great. Hope he's well paid, he deserves it!

Likewise I am neck-deep in the New 52 now, and am reaching a saturation point with DC, enough so that the visceral thrill of getting back into the swing of reading comics is now being replaced by a scrutinizing, critical eye on certain books, especially ones that someone thoughtlessly turned over to Rob Liefield, a guy who seems to be very good at damaging the IPs entrusted to his care; the travesty he made out of Grifter and Deathstroke....seriously, there's some bad writing going on in these books. Just painful stuff. I could only hope the Wildstorm characters were popular enough to get a Flashpoint/Crisis style retcon, or maybe a reboot in their own universe again....the way they were subsumed into the DC continuum with the New 52 is endlessly painful; only Voodoo's two book run really did something to make the character better than it had been. And there's no good excuse for Deathstroke, DC's quasi-Punisher type, who was getting better, more coherent stories and presentation thirty years ago in the Teen Titans as a proper villain.

Anyway....more to come, just enjoying a chance to write a blog without a chosen theme for once!

The Avengers

I saw it. My wife saw it....can't say much more other than, "Have YOU seen it?" Because I'd hate to spoil it if you haven't!

Bullet points of amazement:

1. First comic hero genre film to get "it" right.

2. Perfect pacing in this movie. Seriously, this movie has no dull lag spots.

3. Everyone got memorable dialogue (just about) and the blend of characters and interaction was a spot-on Whedon masterpiece. I'm not a Whedon fanboy, but I can understand why some people would be.

4. It honestly makes the Dark Knight Rises trailer look a little sad and disappointing in contrast.

5. Stick around for two bonus clips, one midway through the credits and one at the end.

6. Bar for super hero films has now been set at the right level (imo). They all need to aim for and beat Avengers-level respect for the medium of comic book heroes.