How Hulk Saved the Avengers

I finally saw Avengers and I very much enjoyed it. But, it took me a while to realize what the movie’s biggest flaw was, the one thing that could have made everything else go away and allow me to thoroughly enjoy the movie. I did enjoy it, but at the same time, I didn’t. That one thing was emotion. Avengers lacked a compelling amount of emotion to get me to care about these characters, beyond the fact that they’re Captain America and Thor. A movie is a movie and you need empathy, and a sign of emotion would have solved that.

Most of the movie felt like actors who were acting. Literally. The scene where Black Widow goes down to Loki to make a deal in order to save Hawkeye could have been a great scene. She feels a certain bond with him and will do whatever it takes to save him. Whether it’s love or a sense of honor you can tell she has her own priorities and her own convictions. Just when you get the sense that we’re peeking into who she really is, when Loki explains how he’s going to kill the two of them and she begins to cry, it all turns out to be a ruse. There are no tears, no emotion, no feelings. You’re supposed to feel like it was clever, but for me it felt like we were cheated out of a moment to connect with someone, even if we didn’t agree with her logic or methods.

Discussion: What’s Wrong with the New 52?

We decided to discuss what we felt was wrong about DC Comics’ New 52 and compare it to Marvel NOW! We talk about costumes, Jack Kirby, Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil and a lot more.

Jason: There’s nothing interesting happening in the New DCU. It’s all just repetition of old comics and stories we’ve already seen.

Superman looks like he’s wearing a big blue diaper now

Johnnie: Yeah, that was my impression as well. I mean, ideally the New 52 was designed to bring in new readers. But what they’re doing with it is so uninteresting to me, I just didn’t bother with 99% of the revamp. The only one I’ve gotten into is Batman. And even then I was already interested in reading Batman. Plus those costumes. My God.

Jason: We could write an entire book about why every costume in the New 52 is absolutely horrible. Superman has so many lines going all over his body that it’s hard to know what to look at. It’s like they tried so hard to make the costumes look ‘real’ that they look so unbelievably overdrawn and unrealistic.

Johnnie: Yeah, I think Superman is probably the worst offender I’ve seen. But it goes beyond just those totally unnecessary, goofy lines. His suit is also not like, cloth. It’s this weird alien technology. Like, I don’t even know how to describe it. What is it exactly?

Jason: It’s some kind of technology that materializes when he wants it to. No more itchy costume under his business attire. He can just rip off his shirt and mentally command his suit to materialize! It’s so necessary!

Avengers Expanding; SHIELD, Arrow Casting

The Uncanny Avengers are expanding. Marvel has revealed that the team, once depicted as having only six members, will soon balloon to a total of nine. Now Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, Rogue, Scarlet Witch and Havok will be joined by Sunfire, Wonder Man and Wasp.

In Avengers vs. X-Men five mutants, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik, Colossus and Namor, are given the power of the Phoenix to reshape the world. Obviously that didn’t go so well. They fight amongst themselves, destroy whole civilizations and Cyclops ends up killing Professor Xavier. Now everyone hates mutants even more, if that was possible. To help the mutant image, Captain America creates a team made up of X-Men and Avengers. Captain America, Thor and Scarlet Witch are the Avengers, Wolverine, Havok and Rogue are the X-Men.