Avengers: Infinity War (BluRay) (2018)

Avengers: Infinity War (BluRay) (2018): written by everybody; directed by Joe and Anthony Russo; starring everybody: Mostly diverting, overlong superhero slug-fest struggles to balance bombast and quippiness and mostly succeeds. 

The visuals and writing are a step down from zippier recent Marvel movies that include Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok. The logistics of fitting all these characters into this story overwhelm all other considerations. Wit is at a premium.

To wit: six years ago, Thanos managed to lose control of two of the magical plot-device Infinity Gems when he had Loki lead his forces in an invasion of Earth in the first Avengers movie. At that time, a third stone was in the possession of the Ancient One on Earth. So Avengers was basically Operation Stumblebum for Thanos. Three of the six stones in his grasp! Then he fritters away six years and goes on a stone-collecting bender in the week or so leading into and through Infinity War. We all wrote high-school essays on pretty much the same last-minute timeline!

The plot thread starring Iron Man, Spider-man, and Dr. Strange is terrific. Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, and Chris Pratt are all divertingly pissy while Spider-man looks on in wide-eyed bafflement. That most of the scenes in this thread take place either on a planet right out of a videogame cutscene or on a spaceship shaped like a donut seems weirdly appropriate. Though the designers of that flying donut really should have invested in double-walled bulkheads.

The climactic Wakanda battle scenes make little strategic or tactical sense, and suggest that, among other things, none of the Avengers or Wakandans have ever seen Zulu. Or read about military battles after the invention of projectile weapons. Wait, didn't Captain America FIGHT in World War Two?

Thanos has been much-changed from his tirelessly malevolent comic-book self into a mournful giant who desperately needs a hug that he never receives. Maybe in Part Two! Brolin invests the big purple fella with a certain bruised gravitas even if his master plan for the universe was stolen from the original series Star Trek episode "The Conscience of the King." 

The BluRay is a little thin in terms of interesting features, especially compared to the loaded Thor: Ragnarok BluRay of a few months back. The featurettes play more like long advertisements than anything substantive, there's nothing about the comic-book origins of Thanos, the gag reel is perfunctory, but the deleted scenes are sort of interesting. I'd guess a much more fully loaded BluRay will appear a couple of weeks before Infinity War 2 bows in April 2019. Recommended.

Unstranger Things

Dr. Strange (2016): based on the character created by Steve Ditko; written by Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill; directed by Scott Derrickson; starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Stephen Strange), Rachel McAdams (Rachel Palmer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Mordo), Benedict Wong (Wong), Tilda Swinton (The Ancient One), and Mads Mikkelsen (Kaecilius): A bit of a boiler-plate Marvel Movie (think Iron Man with magic instead of technology and you've pretty much got it) enlivened by some ambitiously loopy visuals, albeit some of them riffing on Inception and not anything in the Dr. Strange comic books themselves.

The changes to Dr. Strange's character make him a twin for Robert Downey Jr.'s snarky Tony Stark. That's faithful for pre-magic Dr. Strange, not so much for post-magical-training Dr. Strange, possibly early Marvel's least quippy hero -- even Reed Richards (or Sue Storm, for that matter) got off more zingers than Dr. Strange in the 1960's. Created by writer-artist Steve 'Spider-man' Ditko, Dr. Strange's non-quippy gravitas probably makes him the Marvel character who would most benefit from a trade to DC Comics for, say, the Legion of Super-heroes.

Benedict Cumberbatch is fine as Dr. Strange, and Chiwetel Ejiofor does nice work as a seriously reworked Mordo. Mads Mikkelsen plays the least interesting Marvel Movie villain since Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2. Rachel McAdams is stuck playing Natalie Portman in the Thor movies, only moreso.

The movie's visuals fail spectacularly at the end even as they also succeed admirably in translating Ditko's surreal comic-book visuals of the Dark Dimension into the movie world. To say that the visual redesign of Dr. Strange's greatest foe is regrettable is about the most praise I can offer. The poor bugger has been biggie-sized into a giant floating head that looks an awful lot like what would happen if you painted the Tron visuals for the Master Control Program onto an accordion.

As to the white-washing in regards to Asians... yep, one of Marvel's first prominent, 'good' Asian characters is no more. Doc's mentor, the ancient Asian known only as the Ancient One, is now the surprisingly spry Tilda Swinton, a.k.a. The Whitest Actress Ever. And the other tweaks made to the Ancient One's character don't help much either. 

In other areas, the magic training Strange endures now has all the length and rigor of selecting icons off a computer screen. Really, it makes the Harry Potterverse seem like a world teeming with educational rigor by comparison. Doctor Strange just has to make funky Kung Fu moves -- no pronouncement of spells required. And the mystical doodad Strange and friends need to travel through space-time? It's there to be dropped at a crucial moment, as these things always are. Lightly recommended.

Dr. Strange in Time and Space

Dr. Strange: The Oath: written by Brian K. Vaughan; illustrated by Marcos Martin and others (2006-2007/Collected 2007): The ubiquitous, excellent Mr. Vaughan and an able Marcos Martin team up for a most pleasing adventure of Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange. 

With long-time man-servant/bodyguard/pal Wong dying of cancer, Strange sets out to find a magical cure. But powerful earthly forces -- well, Big Pharma -- don't want any such cure found. And they've got their own magician, along with a hired mercenary, to stop Strange's attempts.

All that and a magic-soaked handgun that's peculiarly lethal to magicians regardless of what defensive spells they have up. It's all a rousing, often very funny trip into the odd world of Dr. Strange, and one of the good Doctor's most memorable adventures since his glory days in the 1960's being written and illustrated by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Highly recommended.

Dr. Strange: Prelude to The Last Days of Magic: written by Jason Aaron; illustrated by Chris Bachalo and others (2015-2016): Dr. Strange has been cancelled so many times as a comic book that I can't really fault Marvel for going with a revisionist take on the character in his new comic. I don't agree with some of writer Jason Aaron's retcons and personality tweaks, but I understand them: this Dr. Strange is a lot more sarcastic and a lot less self-assured than most of his previous incarnations. 

Aaron introduces one retcon that's quite interesting without really being consistent with all previous versions of the Sorcerer Supreme: magic takes a horrible physical toll on Strange. I guess we just never noticed before. So it is with major retcons. 

In any event, the magical menaces Aaron comes up with are fun and interesting. Chris Bachalo's art is almost perfect for the visionary horrors of Dr. Strange's world -- his monsters and magical vistas are indeed monstrous and magical. 

Only that odd, persistent Bachalo whoopsy-cuteness in the faces of characters detracts from things, and I don't think Bachalo's going to lose that artistic tic now, even in the build-up to some gigantic magical apocalypse that's about to commence at the end of issue 5. This may not be my ideal Dr. Strange, but it's certainly worth a read -- it's one of the best 'superhero' books currently on the 'stands.' Recommended.

We Must Imagine That Sisyphus Is Lex Luthor

What If? Classic Volume 7:  written by Peter Gillis, Alan Zelenetz, and Mark Gruenwald; illustrated by Butch Guice, Marc Silvestri, Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema, Ron Wilson, Kelley Jones, Dave Simons, Joe Sinnott, Sam Grainger, Mel Candido, Ian Akin, Brian Garvey, Sam de la Rosa, Mark Gruenwald, Jack Abel, and Bill Sienkiewicz (1983-84; Collected 2014): This collection of the final issues of Marvel's first run of What if? is a blast. Peter Gillis writes all but two of the stories included herein, and while he may have been a young writer at the time, he was already a very good one.

What if? spun stories off from (mostly) major events in the Marvel Universe while also serving as a showcase in many issues for up-and-coming artists. Early work from artists Butch Guice, Kelley Jones, Marc Silvestri, and Ron Frenz appears here, and it's generally quite good. Indeed, Guice's work really shines in a sometimes over-rendered way on the first (and best) story in the volume, "What if Doctor Strange never became Master of the Mystic Arts?", written by Gillis. This isn't just a great What if?, it's a great Doctor Strange story.

The other two stand-outs, also written by Gillis, involve Captain America not being thawed out until the (then) present day of the Marvel Universe, and the terrible effects of Sue 'Invisible Woman' Richards dying in childbirth. Both stories are quite grim without slipping into the occasional death-for-death's-sake nihilism that was always the Achilles Heel of the What if? series, as both end on a note of hope and redemption. Unfortunately, an overly complicated set-up for a story about the Hulk "going berserk" leads into just such a work of grim pointlessness, but it's the only real failure in this volume. Recommended.

JLA Deluxe Volume 4 : written by Grant Morrison; illustrated by Howard Porter, John Dell, Mark Pajarillo, Drew Garaci, Frank Quitely, Ed McGuinness, and Dexter Vines 4 (1999-2000, 2004-2005; collected 2010): Grant Morrison's late 1990's run on JLA (Justice League of America) ends in this over-sized volume which also includes Morrison and artist Frank Quitely's terrific JLA: Earth-2 graphic novel from the same time period and a JLA three-parter from 2005 that ties up a couple of loose ends from Morrison's JLA run while also serving as a prologue to his excellent and somewhat wiggy Seven Soldiers of Victory miniseries.

The JLA's final arc is World War Three, the culmination of a plot set in motion in the non-Morrison-penned JLA: Midsummer's Nightmare story that immediately preceded Morrison's relaunch of JLA in the mid-1990's. An ancient super-weapon capable of destroying the galaxy is on its way to Earth, and the super-heroes of Earth are the only people who can stop it. However, the weapon -- Mageddon, a "weapon created to kill gods!" -- sows chaos and war in advance of its arrival. It's also controlling a number of people on Earth who've been charged with destroying the JLA before Mageddon even arrives.

So we fight, on land, in the sea, in the air, and in space. Morrison's greatest contribution to the relaunched JLA was a commitment to epic menaces that only a group composed of Earth's greatest heroes (Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Batman at the team's core and dozens of other heroes at various times during Morrison's run, from Catwoman to Plastic Man) could possibly defeat.

This time, even all the heroes of Earth may not be enough. But before it's all over Morrison and the pleasingly craggy regular JLA penciller Howard Porter will give readers an epic inversion of the usual 'small elite group of heroes saves poor old defenseless humanity' scene that almost always plays out at the end of any superhero story on the page or in the movies. 

Of the other two stories included here, JLA: Earth-2 is a delight. Frank Quitely's weirdly pleasing gallery of gods and grotesques is always fun to look at. Morrison riffs with obvious Silver Agey glee on long-time JLA foes The Crime Syndicate of Amerika, fun-house-mirror versions of the JLA from an alternate, anti-matter universe where Good is Evil and Evil is Good. It's far and away the most satisfying story about the Syndicate since writer Gardner Fox and artist Mike Sekowsky introduced them in Justice League of America back in the mid-1960's. It even spares a melancholy moment for an anti-matter Lex Luthor who is that alternate Earth's only hero as Wonder Woman contemplates his Sisyphean, never-ending failure against the forces of Evil.

Morrison's three-part story from 2005 with artist Ed McGuinness isn't the same sort of success: there's an unpleasantness about the Geoff-Johns-reimagined Gorilla Grodd, now a super-gorilla who actually eats brains rather than telepathically draining them, that pollutes every Grodd appearance since he became a carnivore. Oh Grodd, what have they done to you? Overall, though, highly recommended.

Gorgo Loves His Mama

Ditko Monsters: Gorgo: edited by Craig Yoe; written by Joe Gill and others; illustrated by Steve Ditko and others (1961-64; reprinted 2013): This grand, tabloid-sized volume reprints all of comic-book legend Steve (Spider-man, Dr. Strange) Ditko's work on the Charlton Comics adaptation and continuation of the giant-monster movie Gorgo.

Gorgo was a British attempt in the early 1960's to match the success of Toho Studios' Japanese giant-monster movies, especially Godzilla (nee Gojira). Thus was born Gorgo, a giant monster with an even more giant mother. Like King Kong, Gorgo gets captured and exhibited by some remarkably stupid showmen. Unlike King Kong, Gorgo has a mother who seems to be several hundred feet tall. England takes a beating.

After adapting the movie, Charlton continued the adventures of Gorgo and Mama Gorgo. Ditko and his long-time collaborator at Charlton, writer Joe Gill, combined on several issues of the title over a three-year period, with Ditko also providing several covers to issues he didn't otherwise illustrate.

This volume really highlights Ditko's two almost paradoxically opposite skills as a comic-book artist. He's great at drawing really weird things, and he's great at drawing people and settings that look far more normal and believeable than that of any other mainstream American comic-book artist in history. Giant monsters and ordinary people: it's the Robert Redford/Godzilla movie you always wanted!

In between depopulating the ocean for their out-sized caloric requirements (Gorgo's mother can gulp down sperm whales whole), Gorgo and his mother sleep on the ocean floor and occasionally get into adventures. They're not the villains of the series -- far from it. Instead, they end the Cuban Missile Crisis (I'm not joking), save Earth from an alien invasion, rescue an American nuclear submarine from the ocean floor, and inspire men and women to get married wherever they go (again, not kidding). For giant, destructive monsters, they sure are swell.

Throughout, Ditko juxtaposes the mundane and the fantastic with the same sort of skill he exhibited on his far more famous work on Spider-man and Dr. Strange, two characters he was drawing for Marvel pretty much simultaneously with several of the stories in this volume. Ditko enjoyed working for Charlton, pretty much the cheapest of the comic-book publishers to survive through the 1960's and 1970's, because he had pretty much carte blanche. Charlton was too cheap to exert editorial control, which meant Ditko didn't have to tailor his style to the publisher or have his stories micro-managed by an editor.

It's all a lot of over-sized fun on over-sized pages. This is Ditko near the height of his mainstream artistic powers. The scripts by Joe Gill are loopy in that Silver-Age science-fictiony way. The historical material contextualizes both the movie and the comics. Really, a fine piece of work. Gorgo loves his mama! Highly recommended.

Strange Spiders

Spider-man/Dr. Strange: Fever: written and illustrated by Brendan McCarthy with an additional story written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and illustrated by Steve Ditko (2010/1965; collected 2010): Enjoyable, wonky, slight and psychedelic team-up of Marvel's two biggest heroes co-created by the occasionally trippy pen of Steve Ditko.

That Ditko was amazingly good at conjuring up the weird magical vistas of sorcerer Dr. Strange always seemed a bit paradoxical, as Ditko's other strength lay in making his characters look realistically proportioned -- and New York realistically lived-in. Nonetheless, Ditko made magic look somehow effortless and cool and disquietingly surreal, and forty years of other Dr. Strange artists have struggled to approach the surreal-yet-grounded vistas and creatures of Ditko's realms of magic and mystery.

McCarthy has earned a name as a somewhat surreal comic-book artist, often more for his cover painting for books like Shade, The Changing Man (itself a revival of a trippy 1970's Ditko creation for DC Comics). Here, he grounds his magical dimensions in Australian aboriginal art, among other things, in this tale of Dr. Strange and Spider-man fighting spider-demons in another dimension.

McCarthy wisely keeps Strange and Spider-man believably human-proportioned and muscled, and some of the effects he achieves are quite lovely and strange. He's no Ditko, as the bonus reprint of the first Ditko-plotted-and-drawn Spider-man/Dr. Strange team-up shows, but he's definitely not your average 21st-century comic-book artist. Recommended.

Nihilists, Dude!

Talk to the hand!

The Infinity Gauntlet: written by Jim Starlin; illustrated by George Perez, Ron Lim, and Josef Rubenstein (1991; collected 2000): The good thing about this epic Marvel miniseries from the early 1990's is George Perez's art on the first 3 1/2 issues, especially those sections depicting Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange. What those pages suggest is that, with the right writer, a Perez-illustrated Dr. Strange series would have been fantastic -- the mystical nature of the few Strange-centric pages herein really seem to free Perez to do things with layout that he doesn't generally do.

Otherwise, though, this almost reads like a parody of a massive superhero crossover event. The Infinity Gauntlet is basically half roll call, half fight scene. And as the fight scenes mostly involve hopeless battle against an omnipotent being, they quickly become distractingly depressing.

The death count is high, meaning that a reset button looms at the end of things, an end that takes forever to get to. But those heroes will suffer and be humiliated and get killed in the meantime. Boy, will they suffer and be humiliated and get killed. Among the sadists of the superhero-writing world of the 1980's and 1990's, only Chris Claremont seemed to revel more than Starlin at doing terrible and grotesque things to Marvel's heroes.

Jim Starlin, the destitute man's Jack Kirby, has been death-obsessed as a writer since his beginnings in the early 1970's. Herein, he has his death-obsessed super-god Thanos ("He's a nihilist!" one character breathlessly informs us) kill off half the non-vegetable, non-bacterial living beings in the universe in the opening pages as a love offering to Death. Literally. In Starlin's version of the Marvel universe, Death is a silent woman in a purple, hooded robe. And Thanos loves her. But she doesn't love Thanos. And he never learns. And she never says anything.

But with the Infinity Gauntlet -- essentially a remote control for the universe -- Thanos can now cause havoc for everybody. Leading the forces of good is dour cosmic crusader Adam Warlock, Starlin's go-to character for cosmic angst along with Marvel's original Captain Marvel. Much fighting and yelling and sophomoric philosophical musing ensues, and once Perez leaves and is replaced by the capable but somewhat bland Ron Lim as penciller, the series thuds and stumbles to its conclusion. Not recommended.

When Adults Attack

Book:


Blood Crazy by Simon Clark: This novel is a dandy apocalyptic thriller, equal parts Stephen King and John Wyndham with a little New Agey cuckoobanana psychology thrown in. One fine day, everyone everywhere over the age of 18 starts trying to kill everyone 18 and younger. Yikes! The narrative follows protagonist Nick Aten as he first tries just to survive, and then tries to figure out what's going on and why.

The problems of organizing teenagers into viable survival groups allow for some Lord of the Flies-style shenanigans, while the travails of various survival groups in combatting the increasingly organized but ant-like adults also allows for much angst and action. The explanation for the situation reminds me a lot of group and mass psychology tropes from 60's science fiction, especially Dune, Quatermass and the Pit, and a Doctor Who serial called "The Daemons." All in all, a dandy, compulsively readable novel from Clark, whom I grow more fond of with each new novel.


Comics Collection:


Essential Doctor Strange Volume 4 by Roger Stern, Chris Claremont, Gene Colan, Marshall Rogers and several other writers and artists (c.1976-1981, Collected 2009): The relatively brief Stern/Rogers run on Doctor Strange was one of the good Doctor's career highlights. Well, actually anything written by Stern is a career highlight -- he's Doc's second-best writer after Stan Lee. Claremont (long-time X-Men writer) takes Doc a bit too far into the realms of self-pity, but Stern gets him back again.

My only real complaint about the volume (other than the non-ending to the year-long Dweller in Darkness story, caused, I assume, by Stern being replaced by Claremont for a couple of years) is that it features the semi-famous Marvel House Ad from 1981 that promised us Frank Miller taking over the art chores on the book. Now there's a fascinating 'What if?' scenario, as Miller never did make it over to Dr. Strange.