THE LONELIEST ASTRONAUTS: Unreadable Communication

Awakenings and revelations.

A YEAR OF GIVEAWAYS: It’s Over, For Now

Derek from Ottawa won the last contest, walking away with some Blade comics and the pride of knowing he’s the last winner of my quasi-weekly contests…for now. What was originally meant to have gone on for a year has been truncated by the fact that I need to get rid of stuff much, much more quickly than the weekly drip allows. Thank you to everyone who participated and I’m pretty sure I’ll come up with something similar in the near future.

THE RACK: What Goes Up

What I’ve Been Watching: IRON MAN 2

Please note: there’s some very slight spoilers, mostly relating to overall structure.

Loved:

1.
Don Cheadle as Rhodey is a huge improvement over Terrence Howard’s oddly soft-spoken performance. Just enough bravado and charisma without taking the spotlight away from Robert Downey Jr, who I’m not even going to talk about because let’s face it, he’s doing the thing he does very well with a character that suits him. I wish there’d been more non-armored scenes with the two of them, honestly.

2.
The first act of the movie is hits the ground running, is funny, and has a very steady control of its storytelling. It seems like the least-tampered with, most-thought out portion of the film, moving pieces into place for later effortlessly.

3.
Sam Rockwell is hilarious and slightly sad at the same time as Stark wannabe that takes corporate warfare to the next level. He knows how to eat enough scenery that the audience loves it but he never gets in the way of anyone else.

Didn’t Love, Didn’t Hate:

1.
The SHIELD stuff. I really don’t know how it’s going to play to the average moviegoer who probably doesn’t give as much of a damn about Marvel’s next fifty-three movies as people like myself do. Samuel Jackson’s fine and Scarlett Johannson is hunky dory, but I felt that a little bit goes a long way with the worldbuilding. That said, Black Widow’s fight sequence (yes, only one, spoiler) is terrific, even if it ends with her doing little more than cheerleading.

2.
The second act and the third, which are pretty close to the first movie in thematic and structural composition, seemed pretty sloppy to me. There’s some oddly fatty bits here and there that could have been cut down to make room for more material related to the story. There’s also a plot-related bit involving Tony and the suit’s relationship that is resolved with some jumping-through-hoops that diminishes Stark’s genius by turning him into a tool that finishes someone else’s plans. (I am trying to be intentionally vague here.  Come back and read this after the movie and we’ll talk.)

3.
Like Downey and Cheadle, Mickey Rourke seemed to be having a nice enough time and there were quite a few moments where I enjoyed his off-the-wall, slightly bonkers…wait, he wasn’t acting, was he? Shame that he didn’t have material that forced him to flex a bit.

Hated:

1.
Just like the first film, the big climax takes place at night and while you can make out what’s going on most of the time, a lot of the action just seemed way too samey-samey to me. I understand the practical need for dimly lit action when it’s basically CGI Robot Men pummeling each other, but I wasn’t thrilled at all, really. There’s a few good bits and a very nice “fuck yeah!” moment, but most of it was jump cuts, cameras moving around madly, and close-ups of Downey and Cheadle talking into HUDs.

2.
Pepper Potts is downright bitchy and whiny in this and basically useless in the last act. What starts as a character arc about someone taking on huge responsibilities and stepping out on her own fizzles out disappointingly.

All in all: several really great moments and good performances buoy up a lackluster, pretty-tired-already plot that needed a bit more connective tissue and a bit less thigh-stroking and nerdy talk.

THE RACK: The Spoils

No new SHE DIED IN TERREBONNE today.

TJ’s in the middle of multiple deadlines for real-world, actually-paying comics and sometimes, something’s gotta give. You’ll be seeing his work in multiple books for Oni soon, including a backup in Resurrection (which also featured Chris Sims, Chad Bowers and Rusty Shackles in a recent backup) and a short in Jam! Tales From The World Of Roller Derby, and I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to check out his work in those. TJ also did some very stunning work for Sam Costello’s Split Lip horror webcomic (traitor!) that you should be seeing pretty soon.

Also, he drew me a Wolverine at the Boston Comic Con to shut me up, so here it is. I now want to do a Wolverine comic with him that’s literally just eight pages of Wolverine in a bar fight, not popping his claws, just straight up wailing on dudes. Marvel, you have my contact information.

THE RACK: Staff Picks

THE RACK: A Bruising In The Family

THE LONELIEST ASTRONAUTS: Someone Is Missing

Sleep, interrupted.

Jubilee by Ming Doyle

Despite the hustle and bustle of Free Comic Book Day at Comicopia, I managed to get this sketch of Jubilee by Ming because she likes drawing her and I actually really like Jubilation Lee in the way that I like a lot of Marvel’s c-list characters. Unfortunately, neither of us had a decent camera on hand to capture the rest of her sketches, but you can view cameraphone images in this directory.

How I got someone so talented to draw a couple of astronauts arguing over minute pop culture trivia is beyond me.

A YEAR OF GIVEAWAYS: Taking the week off.

I want you to think about what you’ve done and apologize to the rest of the class.