Tag: 20th Century Fox

Dark Horse Comics, Ed’s Picks of Winter 2017 (Dec/Jan)

Dark Horse Logo

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Rounding out the last few months of Dark Horse Comics goodness was not too tough. There were plenty of titles to pick from, and I settled for a mix of pulp action, movie tie-in and heroism with this company’s flagship captain. Yes, I smell Hellboy in the air and I’m excited to hear that talks are happening again to see if a third movie will indeed get made.

My picks for the winter season includes the following, and there’s only one bare skinned hero who can protect me from Jack Frost!

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Conan Omnibus Volume 1:
Birth of the Legend
Dec 7

Do not make the same mistake as I did and think that buying these omnibus collections later. Although what I sought out can be found in smaller trade paperback collections, to have them all, especially Conan’s earliest adventures in one great volume will have me ordering it locally! The Birth of a Legend contains the works of Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord, with tales such as Born on the Battlefield, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, The God in the Bowl and much more!

Also featured are the material by Thomas Yeates and Greg Ruth, with colours by Dave Stewart!

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An X-Nerd’s Guide and Review of X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men_Apocalypse_International_PosterBy Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler alert!

When X-Men: Days of Future Past (DoFP) introduced a young En Sabah Nur building a pyramid in ancient Egypt after the movie credits, I was very excited for the next film. While I knew the film would not be set entirely in the past, the introduction of this character was all too brief in that past instance and only a few new details are revealed in X-Men: Apocalypse.

He’s the world’s first mutant who has a god complex and he wants to wipe out humanity to forge a new empire. In the comics, he’s out to create a new world order and he is a lot more patient about it. Many months passed in his quest to find his ideal knights. In the film, he’s rushing the end of days and whom he chooses to be the four horsemen are not necessarily those of the biblical version of the four horseman of the apocalypse. The title of which, Nur uses as his codename.

Angel (Ben Hardy) transformed into Archangel and he’s easily recognizable as the Horseman of Death. He’s the only character from the original X-Factor comic book arc when the villain made life tough for the team. Unlike the source, Angel lost his wings (those fragile bones were shattered) and Apocalypse offered to regenerate them at the cost of becoming a servant. Little is known about the character in the film. He’s a slave forced into cage sports. He looked very cool at the start, but once he became evil, the punk look does not suit him well.

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Celebrating Dark Horse Comic’s Alien Anniversary Today With Two Releases!

Aliens-the-original-comic-series

It’s hard to believe nearly 30 years have passed since Dark Horse Comics first published a comic that’s a sequel to James Cameron‘s Aliens. Not only is this company acknowledging this fact with a deluxe hardcover release (now out) of Mark Verheiden and Mark A. Nelson‘s original six-issue Aliens black and white story. Technically, the celebration is in honour of the second movie’s release in 1986; the comic came out in ’88.

When I have the original comics carefully stored away and the portfolio which accompanies it (I got it autographed by Nelson years ago), I want to be careful with handling those. This bookshelf edition makes for a great copy to pull out and read from time to time. Rereading this comic even now still brings shivers down my spine!

Also hitting shelves this week is an all-new tale to continue the terror. More prey and intense action define Aliens: Defiance.

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Ranking 2016’s Comic Book Films by Impact

Trying to translate every hero into a live-action story is dangerous, especially when some heroes just cannot translate well (Aquaman) as a comic book film.

Captain America: Civil War Movie PosterThe past few years have been nothing but a bumper-crop of comic book films. There’s a few one-off’s which are kind of fun, and for the big two, Marvel and DC, just which one will I start to love more? This year will definite it! The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is going to hit a milestone with one of the comicdom’s pivotal moments getting a movie treatment, and the DC cinema realm will finally give rise to the Justice League.

Honestly, I prefer Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s animated unification of the DC universe. Trying to translate every hero into a live-action story is dangerous, especially when some heroes just cannot translate well (Aquaman). So far, DC is lucking out and doing a better job in the television front. The films have been a mixed bag. Marvel is approaching the point of maybe doing too much. One-off’s are fine. I prefer those over any other item, but even I have to admit to see the Infinity War play on a big screen is going to be exciting.

Going from must see to not really caring, herein lies my choices for films:

Captain America: Civil War (May 5)

I really enjoy following this sub-series of the MCU films more than the rest of the others sagas because there is meat to the geo-political wranglings going on. The reason is not because this hero represents the Red, White and Blue. When I have a passion for the pulps, his origin story stood out more and there’s an aspect in the tales that I adore when observing a man out of time.

Yes, I’ll be rooting for the Captain in this installment and I really want to know how Bucky figures into this revised version of the civil war that’s to take place. It will not be necessarily following what was outlined in the comic books even though everyone will be getting to see a new Spider-Man for the first time. For me, it’s to see how this trilogy of films will affect the rest of the MCU in the future. Could that be why the Master of Mysticism is required to turn back time?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVdV-lxRPFo%5D
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The Magic’s Gone with the Fantastic Four, A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

F4_TEASER_ONESHEET

It’s a foregone conclusion to know that the Fantastic Four 2015 movie is going to fail. Reboot, remake or reimaging … the reality here is that there was interference while this movie was being crafted. The responsibility of a movie’s success or failure can include how strongly the studio’s executive producers want something in the film instead of the director. When they do not understand the world of comic book fandom, they should not get involved. When a few people have been involved in other works, there’s hope.

Writer/Director Josh Trank‘s one hit wonder, Chronicle, does not mean he should handle a keystone Marvel property like Fantastic Four. After a lamentable X-Men: The Last Stand, writer Simon Kinberg took a long time to prove himself to fans with his work in the very enjoyable animated television series Star Wars Rebels and well made X-Men: Days of Future Past. Jeremy Slater, the third member of the writing team, does not have enough cred to say if he’s even at fault here. To wonder if these three shared the chores of crafting this film equally or they worked independently in certain segments only reveals a muddled product that is not helping these new four heroes any. As far as some producers are concerned, it’s all about the financial gains a franchise can offer over a film by fans for fans. Where’s Joss Whedon when we need him?

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Going to Rio for Carnival is better than seeing Rio 2

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Rio 2 Poster (2)

The city of Rio is best known for its carnival and the revelers of this six-day party can certainly live it up. It’s such a shame the movie Rio 2, a tale about a domesticated blue macaw learning how to live life freely, cannot live up to the same name and previous hype. It tries — especially with all its high-spirited musical numbers — but it fails when the concepts it tries to extol on are far too formulaic.

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) has a happy life with Jewel (Anne Hathaway) in the city. But when their owners Linda (Leslie Mann) and Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) discover a flock of their kind deep in the jungles of the Amazon, they decide to track the humans down and find that life is not as golden. Jewel’s father, Eduardo (Andy Garcia) does not take an immediate liking to Blu, and with even more enemies to come, just which antagonist becomes important is muddled in a quagmire of who wants to climb up the ladder of being an alpha male. The story may be too complex for a young mind to handle and even for an adult, they may ask why is the message of saving Earth’s rain forests not engrained better in this film.

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