Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Game is Changing

Those of you who read my last blog post may have caught this update from me just after I got myself caught up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:

UPDATE: Marvel wins

Just got caught up on #AgentsofSHIELD after seeing #CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier; holy mother of continuity am I a happy fanboy right now.
— Asher J. Klassen (@AsherJKlassen) April 6, 2014

I was over the moon when Agents actively tied its events into the opening events of the Winter Soldier movie, but those of you who have seen the film know that it's a gamechanger for S.H.I.E.L.D.. And it should be, as the first fully S.H.I.E.L.D.-focused movie in the Marvel repertoire. I suppose it could be argued that The Avengers fits that criteria, but that film had a very different agenda. Joss Whedon's writing for The Avengers was an exercise in team-building, creating meeting point for an ensemble of headlining characters that had to feature them all equally. And it was beautiful. But The Winter Soldier is a movie very much about one guy dealing with a new life, a new worldview, loyalties, secrets, and red tape; it's a conspiracy movie, not a slugfest. The writers get that, and they nailed it. Not to mention that Kevin Feige straight-up told us it was going to be a "political thriller".

According to the clip below, we only have to wait til Tuesday to see the blowback from the film hit Coulson's team of operatives. I'll be waiting with bated breath.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - First Impressions

Let me say before anything else, I'm not going to drop spoilers in this review, but if you haven't yet read Ed Brubaker's The Winter Soldier story arc in his Captain America run, find yourself a copy, and read it. It is is easily among the best (if not the best) Cap stories I've ever read. A brilliant piece of fiction.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I had the luxury of being able to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier on its release day yesterday, something I don't often get to do. The theatre here was doing a 3:45 matinee, so I left my last English class of the year at 2, took a bus to the brewpub next to the theatre and had a pint, and then caught the show. I have a thing for going to see movies, especially superhero movies, alone, and the only thing better than a quiet pub is a quiet theatre.

There were six other people in the theatre.

It was glorious.

This movie is special for one very particular reason: it is based directly on a story arc written by Brubaker. That gives it a distinct advantage in my eyes. Those of you reading Ed's current spy title Velvet know the special way he has with crime and espionage fiction. Any of his work on Criminal, Gotham Central, or Fatale will further attest to that. He brought that very particular flavour to his writing on Captain America, and it fit the character like a glove. I remember reading, back down the line when this movie was still an announcement without a trailer, that writers were aiming for that flavour in this film, more spy flick than superhero action romp. Don't get me wrong, there was action, and there was romping. But it's not the high-flying gods vs. aliens slugfest we saw in The Avengers. In gamer's terms, it's a very different power level. Its a story about loyalties, information, ideologies, and pieces a global chessboard, and in this way it stays true to the spirit of Brubaker's Cap. 

The action was great, the acting was solid, and the characters were surprising well-developed. Maybe I'll get some flack on that point, but I'm going to stick with it. we saw Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow come out of her shell a little bit in The Avengers, and we see a little more of it here. The introduction of Sam Wilson aka The Falcon is smooth and (dare I say?) reverent. George St. Pierre (yes, GSP himself) kills it as Batroc. And when you put Robert Redford and Samuel L. Jackson in a room together...you know what, just watch the movie. It kicks ass.

Captain America #9, Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting

P.S.I'm a couple episodes behind on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I'm looking forward to seeing how they deal with the repercussions of the Winter Soldier events in the show. As you all know, if there's one thing I love about Marvel right now, it's their cohesive universe. So yeah, we'll see. I'm off to re-read Winter Soldier. Cheers!

UPDATE: Marvel wins

Just got caught up on #AgentsofSHIELD after seeing #CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier; holy mother of continuity am I a happy fanboy right now.
— Asher J. Klassen (@AsherJKlassen) April 6, 2014

Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - "We're not exactly a team..."

Joss Whedon just handed us some of the best (geeky) television you're likely to find...again.

I was going to start this post with "Marvel just handed you...", and then realized that Marvel actually has very little to do with this show. I'm reasonably sure you all now now what I'm talking about here, since a significantly large chunk of the world just finished watching the pilot of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. And yeah, it was frakking great. But yes, back to Marvel, and how little we can blame them for the sheer level of awesome on the screen. As we all know, everything Joss touches turns to gold: vampire slayers, Shakespeare, talking toys, you name it. This time, it isn't even just him. This show's credits include Jed Whedon, Jeph Loeb, Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch...big guns in the comics industry and brilliant creators every one. This show is going to survive because of the sheer creative force it has behind it. And because it's not DC...

I went there. I have innumerable issues with the way DC Comics is running things these days, and you can read my griping in previous posts. Not all their content is terrible; Jeff Lemire is writing a pretty damn solid Green Arrow storyline right now and giving that title the creative stability it was pining for ever since the reboot, and hell if I don't find myself loving Arrow in all it's artifical CW-ness. I'm a sucker for a Mike Grell homage. But DC has none of the brilliant consistency that Marvel has managed to weave through its properties, and the damage is ever so painfully visible. Marvel is seeing none of the massive conflict erupting over the canonical validity of Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy, which has nothing to do with DC's monthly titles except having influenced a "new" (2008) way of drawing the Joker, and the more recent post-New 52 Man of Steel, making yet more costume changes to Big Blue. Kudos to Jeff Lemire for gradually bringing the Emerald Archer abstractly in line with Arrow, since that's pretty much the extent of DC's storytelling cohesion. If they were on top of their game to the same extent as Marvel, there would be a Wonder Woman movie in the works to complement Grant Morrison's upcoming graphic novel. We'll just keep dreaming...

With the immense success of The Avengers on the silver screen came the launch of the Marvel NOW! event, a regrouping of Marvel's properties into what Skye would call the "brave new world". In a genius move they canonized the events of that most recent blockbuster, moving fan-favourite Agent Phil Coulson off the screen and into the comics. He features in the Secret Avengers title, a good read, if you get the chance, with more than a passing resemblance to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. There are obvious differences, of course. The "brave new world" of Agents is new to the idea of superheroes, while the universe in the comics is anything but. I think I understand why this is so effective: Marvel is solving the long-standing issue of new readers in a way DC never considered. New readers approaching superhero comics have long faced a dilemma; with decades of back-issues piling up, where's a gal or a guy to start reading if he wants to get a handle on a character's backstory? Instead of taking their comics titles back to origin and retconning 70-odd years of story coughnewfiftytwocough, Marvel decided to tell their heroes' stories from the beginning on the silver screen and bring their comics to bear on a similar course. It's an elegant solution. In the words of Mike Peterson, it's no longer a disaster, "it's an origin story."

So, yeah. Coulson's back in action, there's a serious Iron Man 3 connection in play, and between the flying cars and witty banter this new show has enough Whedon-level awesome to keep me watching for...well, forever, really. It will be great fun to see how the show leads into the upcoming Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron feature films. As for comics, the show offers a great new jumping in point for those intrigued by the world of superheroes. So with beer in hand I applaud you, Joss Whedon. You've done it again.