3.5 Razors

Secret Avengers #20

/ / Comics

secret-avengers-20-coverThe latest issue of Secret Avengers opens with the deaths of Steve Rogers, Agent 13, and War Machine. To save her friends the Black Widow activates an “Escape Hatch” (a small time machine) which takes her five years into the past to begin planning a way to avert the catastrophe which took the lives of three of her teammates.

Sadly, she can’t simply show up and take out the group which ambushed her friends. The timeline must be preserved. Whatever the Black Widow decides to do, she must not leave any trace that the events have been altered.

Using the Escape Hatch the Black Widow travels to talk with the Beast about the the trouble with time travel, enlists the help of a sorcerer hours before his death and a black market weapons designer to make what she will need.

I’ve never been the biggest Black Widow fan, but the choice by Warren Ellis to choose the character who has no special knowledge or skill set of the concepts involved is a good one.

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Captain America #5

/ / Comics

captain-america-5-coverIt might have taken an extra month (and an extra artist) but the latest volume of Captain America finally ends its first arc. As Captain American is trapped in the dream reality battling Codename: Bravo, Sharon Carter pleads with the only man alive who can save him – Jimmy Jupiter.

Although Steve McNiven and Giuseppe Camuncoli’s art don’t compliment each other as much as I’d like, issue #5 proves to be a good finale for the first arc by introducing psychological warfare as the best weapon to use against Steve Rogers.

Sharon Carter gets a couple of nice moments here as well including being the one responsible for bringing Cap back to reality, and kicking the shit out of Codename: Bravo.

As to Queen Hydra‘s plan to use Cap’s patriotism against him, I’m intrigued to see where writer Ed Brubaker will take us next. Worth a look.

[Marvel, $3.99]

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #5

/ / Comics

teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-5-coverWith the four brothers finally reunited the latest issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles takes a breath to give us a holiday issue which sees Raphael training with Michelangelo, Donatello and Leonardo, and Splinter narrating a flashback of the story of Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki.

I’ve really enjoyed this reboot of the Turtles franchise and the final issue of the year proves to be the best so far. Although bloody, the tragedy of Yoshi and his family is handled with skill as more clues to the Turtles’ past are revealed.

We also get a little foreshadowing on how April O’Neil will be brought into Casey Jones and the Turtles’ world as well as a sequence where each of the four turtles earns their own mask to showcase their individuality. Is the explanation of giving the characters different masks (as they wore in the cartoon) a bit of a stretch? Yes, but it works surprisingly well.

Although I’m still missing the original look of Kevin Eastman’s art this comic is proving to be one of best around. Best of the Week.

[IDW, $3.99]

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New Avengers #19

/ / Comics

new-avengers-19-coverAfter teasing us on several fronts for months issue #19 delivers on a number of levels. We get the first public appearance of Norman Osborne‘s new Dark Avengers (although off-panel), Daredevil is finally part of the team, and the first steps to determining whose side Victoria Hand is truly on.

The action is relatively light, but Peter Parker isn’t the only one obsessing with the reemergence of Norman Osborn and Jessica Jones shares her fear with Luke Cage that Osborne will make good on his threat to go after their baby.

New Avengers is always a title that works best dealing with the small character-driven moments rather than big epic battles. An exception to this is the truly dreadful scene (that seems to drag on forever) between Squirrel Girl and Daredevil which is incredibly painful to read. The entire sequence feels clumsier than a production of Shakespeare staring Kevin James and Mandy Moore.

It’s not the best issue of the title we’ve seen this year, but the latest issue of the title does have its moments. Worth a look.

[Marvel, $3.99]

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  • IMDB: link

the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-poster1I’ve never read the novels by Stieg Larsson or seen the original Swedish film, so I went into David Fincher‘s version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (adapted by screenwriter Steven Zaillian) without any preconceptions or foreknowledge of how the events of the plot would unfold. I enjoyed the film as a suspense thriller but I expected more (although I’m unsure if blame should be laid at the feet of the script or the original source material).

We begin not with one tale but two. The first concerns journalist and editor of a small left wing magazine Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). The film opens with Blomkvist losing a libel case for his pubilshed accusations against billionaire financier Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg). Unwilling to to stay with the magazine and hurt it, and his co-editor and part-time lover (Robin Wright) any further, he finds himself untethered and at a loss as to what to do next.

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