Fox and their Turkey Movies

I'm gonna go ahead and give Fox props for some XMen movies right off the bat.  There is a caveat tho.  X-movies that have been under the guidance of Brian Singer have done well and are critically and commercially successful.  This would include X-Men, X2, XMen: First Class, and X:Men Days of Future Past.  He is also directing XMen: Age of Apocolypse.  Each of those movies was either directed and/or produced by Singer and his team.  We can debate the merits of those movies with details, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who says they are "bad movies".
 However, when Singer has not been involved, Fox loses its way and produces some Turkeys. With it being the holiday season, lets pull up a chair, grab some white meat, macaroni and cheese, some collard greens, and cornbread and look at some of Fox's biggest Turkey's.


XMen: The Last Stand

they look like 90's boy band on tour in 2015

Um... err.... look... I hold X2 to a high place in comic book movie rankings.  The ending of that movie with that Phoenix effect in the water had me so hype, I am getting goosebumps typing this thinking about it. So when I heard Singer left, I was like, "well, they can still make a good Phoenix movie".  I was so fucking wrong! The movie is a mess with more characters than you know what to do with.  Plus Halle got her Oscar before and she wanted lines and powers which would've been fine but it comes off as forced.Juggernaut is in the movie essentially to drop the " I'm the Juggernaut bitch!" line. Cyclops get killed, so does Professor X, we got The Cure, but somehow Angel is involved in that. And don't forget about the Morlocks and Wolverine with his Braveheart speech near the end. That movie is so hard to watch based on the potential it had going in.  I am so hoping they get a do over somehow with this new batch of XMen and we get a proper Phoenix story line.


Elektra

not gonna front, she looks great here

Now, I and Brotha Beavis probably liked Daredevil more than other members of @brothascomics. I thought it struck a nice balance between comic and reality and even tho I was not crazy about Afflek as Daredevil, the movie was serviceable.  However, if that movie was not good enough to spawn a sequel, I am not sure how the people at Fox thought it was good enough for a spin off movie.  I have seen bits and pieces of Elektra over the past 10 years and its all bad.  The acting, the special effects, and most importantly the lead, Jennifer Garner, is just awful in this movie. There is no reason to have an Elektra movie at all.  I am all for powerful, female characters getting their own movie but how the hell does Elektra have a movie and Storm doesn't? It makes no sense and neither does this movie.





Fantastic Four

#foxgonnafox- Its been stated and written before that Fox has no idea what to do with this property.  The three movies committed to film are all sorts of awful. They are so equally bad,  its really hard to pick which one is actually the worst.  If you dropped me from a Fantastic- Car from 3000 feet plummeting to my death, I would say Rise of the Silver Surfer is the worst of the three.  The movie in parts is a straight up 90's sitcom. All it was missing was a laugh track.  Jessica Alba may be the prettiest, most terrible actress ever and she is not alone in this debacle of a series.  Plus, Sue Richards may be the most powerful person in the Fantastic Four and they regulated her to bubble making duty. The Thing suits is all sorts of awful and his hang dog, woe is me drives me crazy. The Mr. Fantastic shows no signs of the comic book genius and is literally the bumbling dad from a 90's sitcom. Then there is Doom with his Trenchcoat Mafia cloak and no real sense of gravity on how powerful the character is. The only redeeming thing is Johnny Storm/Human Torch.  They nail the character pretty well and his powers look great on screen.  If he coulda only left the rest of them bitches behind. The new series tried to make it too serious and waited over an hour for the "team" to actually get together.  By that time we had all checked out. Now we get CGI Thing but rarely see him get to be "The Thing".  We do finally get genius Reed Richards but the character and the actor both are dicks.  Sue is powerful but all emo and there is no hint that eventually she will marry Reed Richards.  Human Torch is cool again but I think its mostly easier to play that character ( black or white).  Just a bad series over all and we're all hoping that Fox sells it back to Marvel so they can finally do the characters justice in a good movie.

Wolverine Origins

someone tell my why Cyclops is in this?!

Of all the movies on this list, this one, along with XMen the Last Stand hurt the most.  @brothascomics was all in on this movie.  Big Hutch, myself, and Female Perspective went and saw this at midnight when it premiered. The comics that its "based" upon was hype so going in, my expectations were crazy high.  I would say about 20 minutes in I was looking for the exits.  Shit, where do you start? The opening with him and Sabertooth fighting all the major wars since the Civil War still gets me hype.  But after that, it goes off the rails so quickly. Its really just a vanity project for Hugh Jackman and the value of HGH.  I still have no idea why they cast WILL I AM as a character that teleports when they coulda just cast someone as Nightcrawler.  The Gambit portion was kidna cool, I guess... until he is crawling the wall like Spiderman.  Then that ending... ugh... "back to back" even tho I been trying to kill you for the last 90 minutes.  And lets not forget the adamantium bullets which cause amnesia.  Fuck that is a bad movie!

The Wolverine

I actually had a hard time putting this movie on here because I enjoyed it.  But when you think about it and even if you watch again, people compare it to Origins and anything looks good compared to Origins.  Its like people saying they like Attack of the Clones because it came out AFTER Phantom Menace. The Wolverine is not a terrible movie.  Again it shows the benefits of HGH on older Australians and the acting and action of the movie are pretty good.  But overall, what do you remember most about that movie?  Not much really and Singer and his mutant team didn't think much of it either as they wiped it all out of existence with Days of Future Past.  Wolverine in Japan with Mariko is explored deeply in the comics and they touch on it here but it seems kinda passe while we are just waiting for Wolverine to SNIKT someone! And even that, they took his healing away for most of the movie and just made him a regular dude.... I don't know.  The Wolverine is like frozen yogurt. I like it, I'm just not in love with it.




So that's 7 Fox turkeys.  Now, they have two more in the pipeline that are non- Singer approved.  The first being Deadpool which comes out in February 2016.  Look, I think the trailer looks good and I think, if any, this is the role for Ryan Reynolds to play as long as he stays in the suit.  But, #foxgonnafox so be prepared for it to possibly suck.  It's going to be super violent and possibly super juvenile and its rated R which is going to prevent many fans of the character from actually seeing it in the movies.  I have my doubts that Fox can pull it off successfully( like why the hell is Colossus in this movie) and it could be another Ryan Reynolds comics, franchise killer to go along with Blade, Green Lantern, and RIPD.

Franchise Killa

The last of the Fox movies is the Gambit movie.  Now we @brothascomics have been consistent in saying that this movie is a bad idea as currently constructed.  Its already been hit with a slew of delays, script changes, director changes, and bad press.  This is never good news before a movie even begins principal photography( which it still has not).  This movie should not be made... at least not yet.  They are taking, possibly the 2nd most popular Xman, and putting him in a no win situation for a movie and could possibly hurt/kill the franchise in one swoop.  Please Fox, put Gambit in an XMen movie.  He is an Xman.  He shoulda been in a movie already.  The character is popular- so is Wolverine and look at the two turkeys that character has produced.

All these turkey movies have given me the ITIS. I'm ready for a glass of Merlot and to prop myself up on the couch to watch X2 and Days of Future Past and fall asleep and dream of a world where Brian Singer produces and directs all X properties.  A brotha can dream can't he?

The Producer

Top 5 Marvel Turkeys

Top 5 Turkeys : MARVEL

1.   The New Warriors - I was just going to put  Speedball, but what the hell, they all sucked. Night Thrasher, Namorita, Kid Nova, Silhouette, Marvel Boy, and Firestar.  Marvel put them in the deep water with Spiderman, Thor, and the Juggernaut among others.  They were put to rest in the Civil War series.

2.   Moondragon- When I saw Sinead O’Connor had anything to do with the story, I tried to skip it. She was in damn near every major story arc with the Avengers and the Defenders.

3.  The New Mutants – Especially Majik, Warlock, and Cypher.  DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. : )

4.   Power Pack - Maybe I hate kids with super powers. Classic cover is Wolverine with claws extended about to snikt one of them.

5.   Cloak and Dagger- They do not fit into the Marvel Universe to me. They should be characters of the Akira anime universe. Every story was he’s angry, she throws “white” light darts at him to keep him from going “black” dark.

   

When comics keep it too real

We all love comics as a version of escapism from our day to day.  But there are times when you pick up a book, looking for an escape, and the writers keep it a little too real for you.  This is part 1 of 13 times when Keeping it real in comics messed with the idea that comics is just for kids.

1.      Galactus Hangs Foot in the Sphinx’s Sphincter ( Fantastic Four 212-213)

The Sphinx has always been one of my favorite characters in Marvel.  Introduced in Nova #8, the Sphinx transitioned to the Fantastic Four for better exposure. He was immortal and wanted to remove the Ka Stone so that he could die. Well after finding the solution to the immortality  problem, he decides to destroy the Earth instead.  Well Mr. Fantastic contacts Galactus to “Put down that Uppity Ninja”, and then Galactus can eat the planet Earth afterwards. Galactus accepts this deal and proceeds to earth. Meanwhile, The Sphinx recreates Ancient Egypt  as a reminder of its former glory. Galactus shows up, exchanges some words and the two go at it. The Sphinx gets a beating for the ages and is dispatched in less than 10 comic panels. The f’d up part is that instead of killing the Sphinx, Galactus puts him back in time to live his life  and defeat over again forever.

2.        Dr. Light  Sexually Assaults the Elongated Man’s Wife ( Identity Crisis  #2)

    

 

Dr. Light was always shown as a super powerful villain in the Teen Titan comics, but he was also very myopic in the execution phase.  I always equate him to the Monarch in the Venture Brothers series on the Cartoon Network. Well Identity Crisis changed my perception of him.  Somehow Dr. Light got in the Watchtower and the only person in the tower was Sue Dibny, The Elongated Man’s wife. Dr. Light takes advantage of her before the heroes arrive. The writer Brad Meltzer puts you into the choices the heroes have to make to stop Dr. Light and the Dark Knight. I’m reading the series again because it so good

      

3.      Norman Loves Gwen, Then Kills Her ( Sins of the Past  - Amazing Spider-Man 509 –514)   



                 The House of M decided to bring back Norman Osborn ( Green Goblin) from the dead to bother Peter Parker / Spiderman . The WTF of the feud between these two was when Spider- man was attacked by two young super powered teenagers  who also knew his secret identity. During the battle, the teenagers revealed that their mother was Polly Purebred ass Gwen Stacy. The other uppercut was that they believed  Peter Parker was the deadbeat daddy that abandoned them. So through the story arc, Peter explains that he couldn’t be their father  because he was only shooting  white gobs at Gwen while in costume. Then in Maury Povich-esque fashion, Spiderman finds out that the real deadbeat daddy is Redhead Kingpin  Norman Osborn. Trick ass Mary Jane Watson- Parker  finally tells her husband Peter that Gwen was secretly having this relationship with Norman. She gets preggers and goes to France to download these bastards. Norman supports them but as we all know he O. J.’s  Gwen. 

 




 

   IV.    Kraven’s Last Hunt – The story was originally published in Web of Spider-Man #31-32, The Amazing Spider-Man #293-294, and The Spectacular Spider-Man #131-132. 

This was a series that I couldn’t wait until the next issue came out.  Up until this story, KTH was like Batroc the Leaper or the Toad. My introduction to him was probably in the 1960s Spiderman cartoon series. I could not give him the push required  to take him seriously. Enter Kraven’s Last Hunt. A play on the classic poem by William Blake called The Tyger. Kraven seemingly kills the “Spider” that has been whupping his ass for years. Then he takes on the Spider persona and starts hurting/killing bad guys to get law enforcement’s attention.

The Spider wakes up from being killed (poisoned ) only to find out Kraven has made being Spiderman worse . Spiderman finally confronts Kraven who doesn’t even fight. He just smiles knowing that he finally won.  Spiderman has to undo the damage. Kraven goes Cobain afterwards.

                               

5.  Phoenix Force  Goes Supernova  ( X-MEN 135)

  

     

       This part of the Dark Phoenix story is more Jack’d up than Jean Grey dying. After throttling the X- Men, Dark Phoenix/ The Phoenix Force decides to take her host on a test ride. During the ride, the Phoenix  decides to refuel at a local star system . The fuel of choice is solar power. The Phoenix Force plunges  into the sun of this solar system and makes it go Supernova  about 5  billion years too soon. One of the planets in that solar system had humanoid life on it but the Supernova kills them. When Jean Grey finally (?)  gets control of her body, she is charged by the Inter- Galactic Council for murdering the inhabitants on that planet.  She pleads Dark Possession. The rest is history.

6. The Joker Shoots Barbara Gordon - The Killing Joke 1988

 

       This was disturbing, even in graphic novel form. The Joker believes that it only takes a couple of really horrible events in a person’s life to go insane. The story centers around the man who would become Mr. J being a struggling comedian with a wife and baby on the way. To supplement his income, he takes an offer from two criminals to break into a playing card factory. Just before the burglary, He finds out his wife died during labor and the child died as well.  Mr. J tries to get out of the crime but he is forced to follow through. The Joker Origin story .

                                                    

        Now he wants Police Commissioner Gordon to go cray- cray. To accomplish this endeavor, he goes to Barbara Gordon’s (Batgirl) residence, she Epic Fails her Detect Crazy Arch- Villain at my door saving throw and gets shot in the gut.  She then falls over onto a large glass table shattering her spine and her Dancing with the Stars’ chances.  With his helpless victim lying there, The Joker and his associates beat up the Commish and then take nude pictures of Barbara to show her father later. It doesn’t drive him crazy, However, this book pushes some doors open that can’t be closed. DC creates the Oracle character out of Barbara Gordon.

WHY DID I GET MARRIED 1 & 2 THE BEST MAN ROSEWOOD BABY BOY GO 2 FAST & FURIOUS DAYBREAK THE WOOD PRIVATE PRACTICE I WAS ONCE MARRIED 2 THE SINGER IN FROZEN SWEET BABY ANNAPOLIS BOYZ N DA HOOD,

I Have Chronic  B.B.D.  Yes, the castoffs from New Edition and BALD BROTHER DEMENTIA.

 To Quote  Michael McDonald " I Keep Forgetting ".

I can not tell the difference between Tyrese Gibson,  Richard T. Jones, Morris Chestnut, and Taye Diggs.












I am pretty good at movie trivia and can Separate Six Degrees with almost anyone. But these four brothers always get me into losing bets.

I'm  good with Omar Epps ( Big Eyes), Bokeem Woodbine (Gap Teeth ), Thomas Mikal Ford ( Tommy from Martin ),  Terry Crews (Pushing Old Spice ) Et al.

However those four  Quans are all in the same bad movies or television series. I've watched Three Fast and Furious movies.  I never watched Annapolis, Private Practice or Daybreak. I watched Baby Boy and Why Did  I get Married 1 & 2 for purely physical reasons.


Take the BBD Challenge without Cheating


1.  Which one(s) wishes they weren't  in Four Brothers ?

2.  Which one(s) was in The Wood (1999)

3. Which one was banging the cast off from Gray's Anatomy spin off Private Practice ?

4.  Which one (s) were in The Best Man ?

5. Which one did not get the girl in Usher's My Way Video ?

Captain America: Civil War- Pick a side

East Cost VS West Coast
Biggie VS Pac
Jay Z VS Nas

In life, we all have sides to pick, and the 3rd Captain America movie is gonna make us all pick a side.  The movie is loosely based on the Marvel limited series: Civil War which pitied Marvel's heroes against one another in a battle over freedom and civil liberties with each hero being forced to pick a side.  Iron Man/Tony Stark believes that heroes need to be policed and registered to ensure their powers are used for good.  Captain America/Steve Rogers believes that heroes( and villains)should not be held to a different standard than anyone else and infringing on their privacy for "safety and security" is a violation of basic civil rights.  The seeds of this conflict have been planted in the Avengers and Captain America: Winter Solider and its all setting the stage for Civil War.  Now as much as I often bump for Marvel over DC, Civil War worries me the same way Batman V Superman does.  The movie is already overloaded with "heroes" and that is not even considering the villains that appear in the movie.  I worry the movie can get bloated like Age of Ultron and ruin the momentum that Winter Solider gave the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.

@brothascomics will be reviewing the comic book series as we get closer to the movies release in May, 2016. But much information about the movie is leaking out and articles keep leaking about who each hero aligns themselves with.

Our friends over at Movies Cheat Sheet posted an article today with a definitive list of hero alliances in Civil War.  Let's look at the teams based on their Marvel Cinematic history and powers and you tell me who's gonna win this war.

Team Iron Man

War Machine
James Rhodes is career military man and all he knows in following orders and if the government wants heroes registered, he is going to follow orders. Period.  No surprise he is pro registration and of course he is going to co-sign with his boy, Iron Man.

Black Widow
This is surprising and not.  As one of Col. Nick Fury's top agents of SHIELD, she is already used to policing the para normal activity.  She is a trained assassin with ties to fringes of the government military apparatus.  But she is also a spy and understands how intelligence can often get messy to keep the people and the government safe ad running properly.  Is she pro registration because she doesn't trust Iron Man/ Tony Stark? Is she still working for Nick Fury?

Black Panther
As we do not know what his powers will be and how close they are sticking to his comic book history, its hard to know where he is coming from in the pro registration.  In the comics, he was anti registration after the death of Black Goliath so its interesting to see why his loyalty lies with Iron Man in the movie.  Chances are there is a major link between the Stark Family and Wakanda and he feels a since of loyalty there.  Plus the seeds for the Illuminati are there.  It would not be a stretch to find out that Tony and T'Challa have been knowing each other and working with each other for years.

Vision
Created with the technology from the Mind Stone and cloning from Dr....., The Vision aligns himself with his human creator, Tony Stark.  Vision has a moral conscience to do the right thing.  Heroes registering would seem like the right thing to him so he goes Team Iron Man.

Team Iron Man has alot of fire power with both Iron Man suits.  Vision, at least in the comics, is a super powerful android.  Even in the movie, with the mind stone, he was pretty powerful.  That is in full opposite to Team Captain America

Team Captain America all have quite personal relationships with Cap.  There are his old best friend( Bucky, aka Winter Soldier), his new best( black) friend, Sam Wilson, aka Falcon, and Sharon Carter, aka, Agent 13, aka the granddaughter of a lady he shoulda smashed in the 40's.  Its also a team with Hawkeye who fits in with the team with no super powers.  Team Cap also gets Ant-Man, who may be the most powerful member of the group outside of Captain America.  Let's look at the line up more closely!

Winter Soldier
Last we saw Bucky, he was strapped to a vice grip of some sort at the end of Ant Man.  How he got there and why is a mystery but it looks like Captain America and Falcon were successful in completing their mission to bring Bucky back to the real world.  We know Winter Solider as a world class assassin.  Chances are he has plenty of secrets he would not want the government to know so he would be anti registration for sure.  Plus, with his memory restored, he aint going against his best friend.

Falcon
Look, black people distrust the government. Period.  I could end this here and every black person reading this would be nodding their head and saying, "Word".  But for the sake of writing, Falcon is gonna side with Captain America because that's his boy.  Its kinda surprising in a sense because Sam Wilson is military and he would be much like Rhodey and just following orders.  But the influence Cap has on Falcon outweighs even lawful orders so he stays Team Cap!

Agent 13
The character was just barely introduced in Winter Solider so we don't know much other than her being ex SHIELD.  She had been assigned to watch Captain America by Nick Fury and the hints of a romantic relationship are there as well. Plus her grandma wanted to do it with Cap back in the day so she just fulfills her granny fantasies and is Team Cap!

Hawkeye
Also ex SHIELD and has no real relationship with Cap established in the movies.  In the comics, they have a respectful but tension filled relationship.  In the movies, they barely share any real screen time together so its funny Hawkeye goes on opposite side of his partner in crime, Black Widow. With Hawkeye being a family man with wife and kids, it makes sense he would be anti registration to protect his family.

Ant Man
Well Scott Lang is an ex con so he probably has no real love for the government.  Its been alluded that he will help free Winter Soldier from his vice and maybe the trust that Falcon shows in him, makes him feel a loyalty to Falcon and Captain America.  I don't know.... I could probably go the whole movie and not see Ant Man and be mad OK with it.

But there are some missing pieces here, too.  Where does Nick Fury and Agent Maria Hill fall in this?  He is ex SHIELD director, she is working with Captain America and the Avengers.  What about Scarlet Witch.  She is an Avenger and Hawkeye was the reason her brother got killed. Who's side is she on?  We know she is in the movie based on set pictures from the movie.  And of course, what about Thor and the Hulk?  Is Thor just above these mortal things and stays in Asgard out of the mess?  We last saw Hulk flying an Avengers jet into the abyss. Does he come back? Is he team Black Widow based on their "relationship"?

It will be good to know.  I trust the Russo Brothers to pull this off without it becoming a convoluted mess, as Female Perspective would say.

The Producer

Tell us your favorite job quitting story

On our podcast this week, we shared some of our favorite stories on how we quit jobs we had.  In the comments section, tell us about a job you quit.  Give us all the details! Should be alot of fun!

The Producer

All New Archie #3: Comic Review

@brothascomics continues are reviews of the All New Archie.  Episode 2 ended with the introduction of Veronica Lodge.  Archie, being the klutz that he is, destroyed the Lodge house while its being built.  Now Veronica is starting her first day at Riverdale High School and Archie is mad excited to meet his dream girl.  Maybe a bit too excited as when the Lodge limo pulls into the parking lot, it almost takes Archie out.  He is saved, naturally, by his best friend, Jughead.  Jughead, in the original Archie Comics is famously a "Woman Hater" and he and Veronica have the definition of a love/hate relationship.  The seeds for this relation in the All New Archie are planted early and often.

Once Veronica makes her appearance, Archie is smitten and whipped from the start.  He is on book carrying and tour guide duty.  Veronica also calls him "Andy" in a form of relationship disrespect that Jughead notices and hates.

The artwork in this book is great, by the way.  The rendering of Veronica makes me want to carry her books and give her a tour of my school, too.  Veronica in the All New Archie, is a  former reality tv star who's family has moved to Riverdale with her family as Mr. Lodge is opening up a new factory in this town.  Veronica is rich and a bit of a snob.  She also knows about Archie destroying their house and is holding that secret to keep Archie in check.

Jughead, seeing his boy acting like a punk, tries to check him but dudes that whipped, have no idea they are whipped.

Jughead does what he can to try and save his boy from a lifetime of cuckold behavior.  He tries too enlist Betty to help out and Betty is not having it.  I love the contemporary move of them texting in school- which is totally how this would play out now.  Betty sites the #lipstickincident and says its none of her business what Archie does.

Meanwhile, Veronica is working her way through the school charming teachers and students alike.  Her day seems to be going pretty smooth.  Of course a rich girls first time in public school wont always go so smooth. Archie takes her through the cafeteria and she wonders who the chef is at the school.  Veronica settles on the Sloppy Joe before making her way to a table of girls who are a bit in awe of her but refuse to kiss her ass like most others do.

At the lunch table, Veronica makes the mistake of actually eating the Sloppy Joe.  Now you can imagine the pallet of a rich person probably ain't ready for the grimy, greasiness of the Sloppy Joe.
Veronica gives it all up in front of the entire cafeteria and of course she is embarrassed to all ends of the Earth.

Veronica runs out of the cafeteria into the restroom and calls her father and lets him have it through her tears.  She never wanted to move, she wants to get picked up and come home.  She is all sobs and wailing.  Of course, in a stall is Betty, hearing all of this.  Betty has always had a heart for those in need, even those who are in the process of stealing her ex boyfriend. She gives Veronica a shoulder to cry on and even goes to the Home Ec class to get her a change of clothes.  Of course ,Veronica being the snob that she is, laughs off the change of clothes and insults Betty all at once.  This infuriates Betty, naturally!

Once Betty gets a chance, she texts Jughead and tells him, "Its on"!
This book keeps getting better every month. Again, I am very protective of Archie and its characters but each month they have been able to craft stories that make sense in a contemporary world, but also stay true to the characters.  Next month, we finally learn what is the #lipstickincident.  #Cantwait!

The Producer