Shmee.Me

May 29, 2015May 29, 2015

DC Went Nuts And Made Everything Canon!

Oh man DC went crazy! According to Polygon instead of fixing all their comic books’ odd continuity errors and multiple story lines for the same character they went completely the other way. They embraced the messiness and made every book they have ever published canon. That is right every book. “How?” you might ask. Well they just decided that since the DC Universe has multiple Universes that all those story lines exist within their own world, so why not let them all live on and interact with each other.

This is completely opposite from every other comic book event ever, including the ongoing Secret Wars that Marvel is doing, which clean up and streamline the Universe in to one easy to understand package. Honestly this is probably the coolest thing they have done for awhile. It lets them pick and choose the stuff that works, and ignore but still have the stuff that didn’t in case they want to go back to it and try to fix it. The New 52 Aquaman and Wonder Woman get to stay, but you can bring back the old Superman, or just have both!

We will see how this all turns out, but at least for now DC has given into the madness and let their comic book creators make whatever books they want with whatever characters they want, and that is a very good thing!

May 21, 2015May 21, 2015

Arrow Season Three Is In The History Books!

Yeah I know that Arrow ended before The Flash, but I actually finished The Flash on time, so I decided to review it while it was still relevant. The Arrow on the other hand has no such luck! This was an odd season. On one hand we got The Atom and he made the show lighter, and on the other hand we got Ra’s al Ghul who made the show darker. I think this made season three a bit uneven. It couldn’t decided what it wanted to be.

I personally like the darker tone. It melds well with Arrow being a stand in for Batman, and it sets it apart from its little brother The Flash. When Arrow tries to get funny it seems to loose its footing, so I think it is good that The Atom and Co are off on their own thing next year. Hopefully that will let the Arrow get back to his brooding in the shadows. We will see. It will be also interesting to see if Mr. Queen will have to fight more Metahumans or not. I am guessing yes. That will change up the show quite a bit since he will be fighting people much more powerful than himself.

I wonder if the writers can bring the focus back to Arrow next year, or if they get too distracted writing three other shows. I hope they can because the show that started the comic book TV craze should be in the running for the best, and not just an also-ran. See you next year Oliver!

May 20, 2015

The Flash Finishes His First Run!

Season one of The Flash is over, and it has been a great season! I have to say, I thought it might loose its way in the middle of the season, but the it found its way back in the end. It had one of the best end of season cliff hangers I have seen in a long time. I am not sure how they are going to get out of that mess unless they get a little help from Supergirl.

It is clear the writers don’t have the same problem with killing people off that Marvel does. Unlike Arrow though the deaths didn’t feel gratuitous, and they added weight to the story, but as we have seen that doesn’t mean they stay dead. I mean they introduced the Lazarus Pits for crying out loud. Death might have a hard time sticking in this universe.

I can’t wait to see what they have planned with season two, and how The Flash is going to interact with Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and possibly Supergirl. With this much of the DC universe revealed there are no limits on the storylines they can explore. Who cares if the DC movies don’t turn out, because their TV has been excellent.

May 19, 2015May 19, 2015

Daredevil Is the Marvel Show Fans Have Been Wanting!

I remember the excitement when Agents of SHEILD launched, but then I remember the waves of crushing disappointment fans felt when it wasn’t the superhero show they longed for. To be fair I hear that Agents of SHEILD has found its footing, so I may need to binge watch it soon to catch up, but Daredevil was great from the start and mostly to its finish. It had a gripping story of one man trying to make a difference, sure the man is a ninja, but one man none the less. It makes me wonder why they didn’t start with this show in the first place.

I think why Daredevil succeeds while Agents struggled at first is that it is not tied as closely to the movies. Sure there are nods to the films, and comments about some of the Avengers, but for the most part this is a smaller story and not something the events of the movies would affect at all. It is too low level to even hit the Avengers radar. It was refreshing to see a small scale superhero arch from Marvel when everything they have been doing lately was been so cataclysmic. The worse thing that happens if Daredevil fails is the end to a portion of New York. Not the world. Even then it is forced gentrification not annihilation. It is a much more intimate affair.

If I had any qualms about the show, it is that ended on somewhat of a down note for me, and not the rollicking high that it started on. Still good, but not as great as the start. It also reinforced that Marvel has a death (or lack there of) problem. It doesn’t know how or when to pull the trigger, and the less we talk about the new Daredevil outfit the better. Sure it looks a lot like the DC TV costumes, but those really aren’t great templates to work with, but much like the DC shows if they keep the quality up I can live with an ugly Daredevil jumpsuit.

I love what Marvel and Netflix did with this show, and now I am looking forward to AKA Jessica Jones even more. If Marvel can keep their stories contained like they did in Daredevil, we should be in for quite a few treats as they lay out their next few Netflix shows, or at least until “The Man Without Fear” returns.

May 15, 2015May 15, 2015

Marvel Is Going Too Far With Their Fox Feud!

Things between Marvel and Fox have gotten tense, if rumors are to be believed, but there has been some recent events to prove this. In the new issue of Uncanny Avengers #4 we learn the new history of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver: They aren’t mutants anymore, they are genetically engineered. So their long history of being Magneto’s kids is now void. Now there are two reasons for this: One it makes it hard on Fox to use Quicksilver in their X-Men movies because now he is not a mutant, and two in Marvel’s mind it makes it easier for people who are new to the comics to correlate the characters in the comics to the ones on screen. That is garbage though.

The movies aren’t driving people to the comics, a good comic book sales number is a little over a hundred thousand, but most are in the tens of the thousands, so for the most part their isn’t any confusion, and just because Fox is making money off their characters and isn’t running to Marvel for help like Sony doesn’t mean they should start changing all of Fox’s good characters to non-mutants just to screw with them. I mean where does that stop, “Oh it looks like Wolverine was really just a bioweapon created by the Canadian Government, so he is not an X-Man anymore! Welcome to the Avengers!”

I get with the current movie deal Marvel had to create a new backstory for the Maximoff twins because they can’t use the word “Mutant” in relation to their characters, and that is hard to work with, but changing decades of backstory in the comic books is just kind of lame. They at least could have just re-launched the characters as part of the Secret Wars event so that the old stories would have held up, but instead they chose a sloppy retcon. I am not sure Disney’s hard lock on their comic books is going to end well, and I am starting to appreciate DC’s much more loose grip.