#72 - Heroes in Crisis (Part 2)

OK, we’re back to this, and there’s a lot to cover, so there isn’t gonna be a long preamble like last time

Previously on Heroes in Crisis: Writer Tom King destroyed the premise of his own story by starting with a massacre at a trauma centre known as the Sanctuary. Booster Gold and Harley Quinn fought, both blaming the other for said massacre. And that’s it.

Once again, trigger warning, I’m going to be describing offensive scenes and not all of them from Heroes in Crisis. Violence, death, suicide, mental health and sexual assault/rape may be covered in this review.

#71 - Heroes in Crisis (Part 1)

I was originally gonna wait on this one, but with my schedule originally there wasn’t gonna be another Rage Review until at least December, so I’m rectifying that now. Heroes in Crisis is the worst comic story I’ve ever read. I’ll make no bones about that, it’s worse than the stupid Mr Freeze retcons, worse than the revamped origins written by Scott Lobdell, worse than Felicia D Henderson’s Teen Titans rune, worse than Cry for Justice and its follow-up mini-series and worse than Secret Empire.

To understand exactly why this story p*sses me off, we need to examine a couple of mental health related issues, so trigger warning. This review, and the onecs that follow will discuss death and suicides in relation to mental health and how this story does all of it a complete disservice. Also, I’m not a doctor, most of my analysis is based on common sense and minor bits of research. If I make a mistake, please point it out to me, I do not want to be giving out inaccurate information.

                                                                                        

Before we begin we must also look at the story of Wally West, so many spoilers to follow. 

Mini Review - Superman Returns

I know it’s been a while, but we’re back to Superman.

2018 was a year I decided not to cover 2 movies because of the unfortunate and horrific things levied against Kevin Spacey (which continued after I finished writing this, seriously, f*ck Kevin Spacey). But there is a time to separate the art from an artist and refusing to cover them because of one actor is insulting to everyone else involved, so I’ll be doing mini reviews of Superman Returns and Baby Driver over the coming weeks.

Superman returns was intended as a sort of tribute to the Christopher Reeve Superman era, as well as an attempt to breathe new life into the franchise after the horrendous performance of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It didn’t work out very well, it made only $390m on a $200m budget, thanks to a dismal performance overseas.

Whilst critics tend to like it, most praises came with a few caveats, so let’s dig into the… 2 hours and 37 minutes!!! Holy sh*t, this is a long movie!

Guilty Pleasures #46 - Justice League

Over the course of 10 years and over a dozen movies, it’s all been building up to this, this is… wait no, that was Avengers: Infinity War, let’s take a look at Justice League

DC comics do not have a good track record with movies. Since launching the DC Cinematic Universe, only one of their movies has a been a critical success. But most made money at the box office, here we’re looking at DC’s first bonafide flop. The movie was a bit of a mess behind the scenes thanks to Zack Snyder quitting the project and being replaced by Joss Whedon, who rewrote parts of the script and that entailed intensive reshoots.

For the record, I hold no ill will to Zack Snyder for his decision to step down. The loss of a loved one, especially under those circumstances, is a horrible thing to go through and I totally understand his decision to step aside. Then studio then mandated the film be under 2 hours long and wanted it released by the end of 2017 so executives could get their bonuses before the merger of WB and AT&T, this in spite of some hiccups in post-production.

The extent of the reshoots brought the budget up to $300m, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made. It made $657m at the box office; once marketing was factored in that lead to an estimated $60m loss for the studio. So, where did this movie go wrong? And did it deserve to fail?

#53 Superman IV - The Quest for Peace

I honestly didn’t know which format to use for this one.

I do not like Superman 3, I hope my review during the summer made that clear. I don’t like its overly comedic tone, it’s boring villains, Gus, just generally Gus and the complete waste of any potential in Smallville. Still, it was successful enough to get another sequel, although the changes are much bigger this time.

Let’s start off with the budget, a significant slash from Superman III, that’s because allegedly Golan Globulus, the studio behind the movie, took investor’s money and invested it in other projects. Either way, this movie had a budget of only $17m and boy does that show, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Despite the low budget, the film was a financial failure and the entire franchise was put on the back burner until Superman Returns in the 2000s (I'll cover that one eventually, but given recent allegations against Kevin Spacey, it'll be a while).

This is regarded as not just the worst Superman movie, but one of the worst movies ever made, so why am I conflicted? Let’s take a closer look at hahahahahahahahahahahahaha sorry, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

#49 - Superman III

OK, so Superman 2 was great, wasn’t it? Only bad things to come from here.

Richard Lester is in full control and it’s time for, *sigh* a more comedic Superman movie. They did manage to make their money back but it was critically slammed and the next entry was done with a different production studio and far less money. But that’s a story for another day, let’s take a look at Superman III

#47 - Sequel Month - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Please Note: This review was written before the announcement of Zack and Deborah Snyder stepping away from Justice League to cope with the loss of their daughter. I wish them all the best, however, I'm commenting on a product, and this product sucks!

It’s Sequel Month!

And enough of the mediocrity, let’s get into the pure sh*t. This is Batman v Superman – Dawn of Depression.

Released in March last year, this movie fell short of expectations for a movie that combines DC’s 2 most popular characters, arguably the two most popular characters in comics overall. If Iron Man 3 could reach a billion dollars in the box office, what stopped this? That’s not to say it did poorly exactly, it made over $800m but the scathing reviews, but holding only a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the fact a lot was spent on marketing this movie to the point where this movie only barely made a profit, and considering the enormous $250m spent on the movie anyway.

Zack Snyder original tease for this movie had me exceptionally worried. The Dark Knight Returns is a good story, from a time when Frank Miller could actually write coherent stories. But to take inspiration from this for Batman and Superman’s first meeting struck me as odd, especially given the themes of that book.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ll be going over the Ultimate edition of the movie, which is around 3 hours long. This is purportedly the one with the most complete story but I will say now, 3 hours is too long for a movie, whether it be Titanic, Avatar or Batman v. Superman; apparently, it got an R Rating in the US too, even though in the UK, it sits still at the equivalent of PG-13.

Lets dive in

Mini Review - Superman II

When I decided to review the Superman movies, I decided to vow not to have them as far apart as I did with the Batman ones. So, yes, this sequel got arranged for April, I’ll be covering III in August and I intend to have IV by year’s end, with Superman Returns in 2018. Batman Begins I’ll be reviewing as part of Neeson month in July and I’ll review the Dark Knight at some point too, Batman vs Superman will be reviewed as part of sequel month in June and I’ll review Suicide Squad in August, which will bring me more or less up to date with the DC movies. I know I’ve barely reviewed any Marvel ones aside from Age of Ultron and Iron Man 3, bear with me, is all I ask with that.

But today we’re looking at Superman II, released in 1980 after the success of the original Superman movie. It enjoyed somewhat financial success making $190m on a $54m budget and is widely regarded as the best Superman movie, or that might just be me, I can never tell. Production wise, Richard Donner was replaced after filming a large proportion of the movie owing to poor relationship with the producer and was replaced by Richard Lester, who conducted vigorous reshoots so he could gain director’s credit. Complicating that was Gene Hackman’s refusal to return for reshoots. Does this patchwork of directors result in a patchwork movie?

Guilty Pleasures #35 - Superman: The Movie (1978)

I’m just gonna put this on-record for everyone. Brace yourselves, this is a controversial opinion that I’m never gonna be able to take back...

Man of Steel sucks and Batman v. Superman sucks. I’ve already gone into detail about what I hate about Man of Steel in my review (plug) and I’ll be reviewing Batman v. Superman later this year. But before we do that, let’s take a look at the movies at the other end of the scale.

Superman: The Movie is one of the best rated superhero movies on Rotten Tomatoes, 93% puts it up there with the Dark Knight, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man and the Avengers. Note how The Dark Knight is the only other DC movie in the 90+s on Rotten Tomatoes. But we’re not here to judge the ratings, I’m here to judge it for myself, using modern sensibilities because I think it'll be funnier. Let’s dig into Superman: The Movie and see what this has to offer.

4 issue test #34 - Trinity

Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in the same issue. Sold. Writer: Francis Manapul… ok, expectations lowered a bit.

Look, I have not read a lot of Francis Manapul’s work, I dropped the New 52 Flash after the first issue, I was less than impressed. And I’ve seen what happens when someone tries to do double duty as both writer and artist on the same title, JLA was not a great, sure it isn’t the same writer but the constant delays of a title like this worry me. But DC seems interested in getting titles out at their allotted time lately, so we have Clay and Seth Mann and Scott Anderson doing #3 and Emanuela Lupacchino, Ray McCarthy and HiFi doing the art for #4. Could this ruin the feel of the book? Let’s take a look.

DC Rebirth review - Nightwing/Justice League

Time for me to review an insane amount of comics all in one go, again. Let’s skip the intro and get on with it

DC Rebirth review - Action Comics/Detective Comics/Batman/Superman/The Flash/Wonder Woman

So DC has decided to relaunch all their titles with new creative teams and is attempting to bring legacy back into the DCU. This is a very good idea, legacy is one of the greatest assets DC has over Marvel, which has almost all of its heroes operating in the current day. Another interesting part a number of series are now biweekly, and since the Hiatus combined with how many titles I’m covering make it impossible to do 4 issue tests on all of them I’m going to review the bi-weekly titles in 2 reviews. The first will cover the titles that first came out in June, and the second will cover those that came out in July.

As usual, I’ll cover the first 4 issues of the relaunch, plus the rebirth issue if there is one. But bear in mind that I won’t be covering them in as much detail as I would a regular 4 issue test because I’m covering several comics at once.

4 issue Test #12 - JLA (Justice League of America)

So, time for another continuity bubbled Justice League. The regular continuity with the Justice League titles is one giant clusterf*ck. The way I see it, Geoff Johns’ League is a pre-convergence story, since it features Bruce Wayne as Batman and a fully powered Superman (although I haven’t seen him do his super-solar flare (yeah, that was added recently because if there’s one thing Superman really didn’t need it’s another new power)) this I can only imagine takes place in the 5 years between the opening Justice League story, and the second, that’s a 5-year gap, give or take.

How does this story hold up? Let’s take a closer look

4 issue Test #11 - Martian Manhunter

I know, I'm using issue 2, but my photo-editing skills are limited and this one was easier, kay?

Martian Manhunter is one of the characters most shafted in the New52. Once a high profile member of the Justice League, he was initially reduced to a member of Jim Lee’s Wildstorm team, Stormwatch which had been integrated into the regular DC Universe with very limited success. He then became a member of Amanda Waller’s JLA until the Trinity War and subsequent Forever Evil lead to the team being disbanded.

He then joined the JLU and has been part of their adventures. I believe they’re still ongoing but this title is his first solo outing since the New52 and another part of the DCYou lineup. How does it hold up? Well, let’s take a look.

#20 - Superboy #0

We’re in anniversary month (no this one doesn’t have a picture) the month the marks a full year since the beginning of my reviews. And who would’ve thought that after a year, I’d have done nearly 200 review entries for the site?

So, it’s time to look back at a past project. Zero moth and cr*ppy Scott Lobdell? Wait, this one was written by Tom Defalco. Former editor in chief of Marvel comics? Writer of some decent Nightwing tie-ins and co-writer of the very good Nightwing #0. Wait, this is when he was still adapting Lobdell’s stories, wasn’t it? Never mind. He would be writing his own scripts in future instalments of the book but of course it wouldn’t be far into that where he’d have to cross over with another Lobdell story, H'el on Earth. (I’ve heard mixed responses about that one, but since Lobdell was handling the Superman titles and this was post Teen Titans #0, I never read it, nor do I plan on doing so)

The problem with zero month and a comic series like this is that they’ve already done his origin, his origin for the new 52 was outlined in the early issues of the title. So what do you do with an issue like this? Find a way to make it needlessly complicated of course.

#9 Man of Steel

This is a review I wasn’t entirely sure what review I wanted to do, but in the end I chose rage issues, because despite the fact there are good points to it, there are a lot of problems, that as a comic book fan, I’m not impressed with.

So, let’s dig into Man of Steel without delay