Geek Force FiveCast 004 (Video)

The fourth episode of a semi-regular show/podcast from GeekForceFive.com. Today, we cover 1) Viddler co-founder Rob Sandie’s birthday; 2) This week’s issues of the Amazing Spider-Man and the Mighty Avengers; 3) Pac-Man on the iPhone; 4) 1,000 albums to hear before you die; and 5) Ben’s man on the boat.

If you’d like, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast via PodShow.com.

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Incredible Hulk Trailer Smashes Onto the Interweb

The teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk is now available for viewing online, and it is every bit as cool as the teaser teaser I mentioned in Monday’s FiveCast seemed to suggest it would be. Comic Book Resources suggests that this is a “restart for the franchise” but I don’t see anything in this trailer that completely disavows all knowledge of the previous film. I don’t see how you can completely ignore that film, imperfect as it was. It came out too recently.

Newsarama has a good (but poorly written) summary of which versions of the Hulk this trailer suggests the new film is borrowing from:

From the looks of the trailer, The Incredible Hulk borrows some from the version of the Hulk as established in Marvel’s Ultimates (as well as nods to the television series): a man on the run from a government that sees him as a living bioweapon, a hunger for more creatures like the Hulk to fight for world powers, and Banner ultimately conceding that he is the only thing that can stop the Abomination.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am very excited about the possibility of a Hulk film that nods to the television series. So far, so good on this one, Marvel.

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Marvel Editor-in-Chief Answers Fan Questions at MySpace

Joe Quesada, the much-maligned editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics—he single-handedly destroyed Spider-Man, or so sayeth fandom—is returning to the realm of Internet Q&A after a prolonged absence. Comic Book Resources reports that Joe Q’s first “MyCup O’ Joe” column will appear on March 21 on MySpace. His previous columns had been hosted by Newsarama.com, but it appears as if the two sides have had a falling-out. The columnists at Newsarama were among the most vocal critics of Quesada’s plan to erase the marriage of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Mary Jane Watson. Quesada, who has long said that a married Spider-Man just isn’t as interesting as a single Spider-Man apparently knows how to hold a grudge. Because, seriously, he’s going to post a column on comics at MySpace? I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I only go to MySpace to communicate with close friends and to pimp my Website. When it comes to MySpace, I get in and I get out. It’s not a place that I think to go for news. It’s not a place that I want to hang around at.

I think Joe Quesada is one of the most talented artists working comics today (when he actually puts out work, that is), but I’m not a huge fan of some of the decisions he makes as a businessman. I won’t fault him for erasing the Spider-Marriage—traditional comic book characters are supposed to be forever frozen-in-time, after all—but I do take issue with boneheaded moves like this one. MySpace? Seriously, Joe, why? I’ll read your columns, because I have always loved them, and because I crave the latest Marvel scoop, but I can’t help but think that there are better options out there.

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The Amazingly Sh*tty Spider-Artist

I’d like to begin by giving my good pal Andy a shout-out for the shout-out he gave Geek Force Five on his site last week. And I’d like to follow-up that shout-out by thanking Andy for inadvertently reminding me that the comics coverage of this site has been woefully inadequate thus far. You see, in describing what I was covering over here, Andy specifically mentioned “comic book movies” instead of just plain comic books. That got me looking back into the archives to see what might have given him that impression. And, lo and behold, I discovered that the only comic book story I’ve done prior to this one was the one about the forthcoming Wolverine and Hulk movies. Add to that the fact that I used a movie-version of Spidey in the header image, and you can see why people might be confused.

So, without further ado, here is my attempt to get the comics coverage on this site back on track. Next week, I hope to get you an Explaining the Obsession entry similar to the one I did for Nine Inch Nails. Until then, here are my thoughts on this week’s issue of The Amazing Spider-Man:

The art sucks!

The gist of my feelings about the now thrice-monthly Spider-Man title is that Marvel is sacrificing quality for quantity. I was behind them 100% when they decided to cancel their excess Spidey titles and start publishing only one book that would have a more cohesive storyline. In the past, you had Spidey dealing with one crisis in Spectacular Spider-Man, one crisis in the adjectiveless Spider-Man, and another crisis in Amazing. And then, every once in a while, they’d do some sort of line-wide crossover and you’d have to buy all three when you hadn’t been buying all three before. It was confusing, even more confusing than this paragraph, if you can imagine that. The new strategy of publishing one title, Amazing Spider-Man, three times a month, was supposed to solve problems. And, for the first two months, it did.

But the problem now is that they’ve cycled through their top-tier artist and writer combos and we’re left with Bob Gale of Back to the Future fame doing the writing and this guy Phil Jimenez, who apparently couldn’t draw a realistic-looking foot to save his life. I mean, the art is just shoddy. Maybe this guy has done some quality work in the past, but what he’s doing now is just not doing it for me.

I started collecting comics in the 90s, when art was the major selling point. Now, I’m not saying that art should be the major selling point, and I’ll be the first to admit that the writing in the 90s left a lot to be desired, but I can’t stand books that try to win customers over with good writing alone. Comic books are about the marriage of art and words. You can’t skimp on one or the other, in my opinion. And that’s what I feel like Marvel is doing. They want to capitalize on Spidey’s popularity by having a new Spidey book out in stores three weeks out of every month, but they’re losing so much in the process.

Maybe next week will be better, but I’m not holding out much hope.

This Week’s Other Book(s)
This week’s Uncannny X-men (#496) was a surprise of the far nicer variety. Ed Brubaker’s spinning a couple of fun yarns here, one involving Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler bar-fighting in Russia near where Colossus comes from, and the other involving Cyclops and Emma Frost traveling to San Francisco to rescue some friends from a city that’s suddenly psychically under the impression that it’s the 1960s again. Fun, fun stuff. The mutants have been through some dark days in the past year or so, and this story arc seems to be all about balancing that.

I also managed to snag a copy of Secret Invasion Saga, a freebie book/marketing device designed to pull people in for Marvel’s big Secret Invasion event this summer. That was mildly entertaining, too. I loves me some skrulls, man. And I’m really excited to see what they do with this whole storyline. Basically, these shapeshifting aliens have infiltrated every facet of the Marvel Universe’s Earth. And everyone’s flipping out, because no one knows who’s who anymore.

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Claws vs. Rage: New Images from Wolverine and the Incredible Hulk

Empire has released new promotional images (here and here) from two upcoming films based on Marvel Comics superheroes. The Incredible Hulk, a (partial?) reboot of the franchise which got off to a rocky start with Ang Lee’s 2003 film, is set to be released on June 13, 2008. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is due on May 1, 2009.

Rumors are that the new Hulk film will be closer in tone to the 1970s television show that starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, and this photo from IMDB certainly gives one hope. There’s also talk that The Incredible Hulk, together with Iron Man, might be setting up an eventual Avengers flick with a couple of cool crossovers. The word is that Nick Fury will appear in both movies, and that Iron Man’s Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) will make a cameo in the Hulk feature. This give’s one the impression that Marvel’s film division is getting its act together after some recent missteps.

But, waitaminute…

Wolverine, who first appeared in comic book form in The Incredible Hulk (issue #180 or issue #181, depending on how technical you want to get), gets his own shot at silver-screen glory in 2009. X-Men Origins: Wolverine brings back Hugh Jackman in the titular role, but it’s also managing to cram into it’s cast just about every waitaminuteareyoukidding? celebrity that director Gavin Hood can think of. Ryan Reynolds, Liev Schreiber, and Charlie Pace himself, Mr. Dominic Monaghan, have all been announced as castmembers recently. They’re all fine, I guess (though why we have to cram this film full of pseudo-celebrities is beyond me). But then there’s Will.i.Am, from the Black Eyed Peas, and I simply refuse to accept that any movie featuring Will.i.Am can be any good.

So, on the one hand you’ve got The Incredible Hulk, looking like it could be totally bad-ass, and on the other hand you’ve got X-Men Origins: Wolverine, clunky title and all, looking like it could be totally ass-bad.

Oh, Marvel, what am I going to do with you?

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