The Defenders Is A Good Offense

Netflix’s The Defenders is finally out! My pre-Defenders blog became obsolete so fast! (If you’re not interested in this series, I recommend streaming the following international films on Netflix, depending on your region: Tag, The Forbidden Room, Wetlands, Filth, Look Who’s Back, Bon Cop/Bad Cop, & The Treacherous.) I was impressed by Daredevil season one, loved Jessica Jones, disappointed by Daredevil season two, & pleasantly surprised by Luke Cage. Instead of bothering with Iron Fist, I watched Crazyhead, which has the best title sequence so I regret nothing! Last chance to defend yourself from The Defenders spoilers!

Pre-Defenders / Post-DuckTales Escapism!

The Defenders comes out on Friday! Until I get a chance to watch it at a leisurely pace, here’s some random other musings! If you make it to the bottom, I’ll tell you about DuckTales!

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My feline overlord had her ferocious fifth birthday! She actually liked her presents this year! I don’t know how to process this.

A Purricane of judgmental kitties would be more terrifying than any Sharknado.

Is Luke Cage All The Rage?

The Defenders is coming soon! (I’m hoping it abruptly switches from them teaming up to thwart The Hand to Patsy getting married to Daimon Hellstrom.) Thanks to a temporary Netflix (the company that wants both the TV & movie awards for technically being either) account, I finally got around to fulfilling my promise of watching Luke Cage.  Anybody still need an overview of that? (Let’s see if this obsolete review is more popular than timely reviews of Atomic Blonde & Valerian. Surely it’s got to do better than my S-M: TOTD critique.) My review gets a bit spoilery, but maybe that’s not such a big deal since it’s been out so long.

I wasn’t too excited about watching this since Luke Cage was pretty dull in the mostly great Jessica Jones. Daredevil season 2 left a bad taste in my mouth too. I liked Luke Cage, however, more than I expected. It helped that I didn’t have to marathon the whole thing in a single day, though the Netflix bastards kept shrinking the credits on me. Fortunately Mike Colter can make Luke a likeable character when he’s the lead. Showing how afraid he is of being sent back to prison for a nebulous crime he didn’t commit (or breaking out, which is a crime he did do) explains why he was so low key in Jessica Jones. Despite all his rage, he is still just a Luke in a cage … of his own trauma. Cage does grow into an inspirational hero though. He even does a riff on a timely Captain America speech where he explains that Harlem is only great if it has great denizens. He also frequently exclaims “Sweet Christmas!”

Valerian & The City Of Atomic Blonde!

With Marvel & DC’s cinematic rivalry on hold until November, we can turn our attention to film adaptions of indie comic books: Valerian & The City Of A Thousand Planets & Atomic Blonde. These two motion pictures share other commonalities too: I’ve not read either source material yet, John Goodman’s voice, & neither is doing as well at the box office as I believe they ought to be. If you want more variety in your comic book movies, support these! So (with very minimal spoilers) here’s why you should see both of them in cinemas. (But if you only want Marvel & DC movie tidbits, scroll down to where I discuss Deadpool 2 & Aquaman.)

Toys & Trailers of SDCC 2017!

Thanks for choosing my blog to absorb your armchair SDCC 2017 coverage from! SDCC remains the statistically safest place to avoid comic book news. As someone who has been to San Diego Comic Con ONCE, you can count on me! After all, my SDCC prediction from last week came true! Lots of stuff happened, so I will do my best to ignore that thing you actually wanted to read about! Click on down because we’ve got the bait!

Wonder Woman, Squirrel Girl, & Doctor Who Team-Up!

A Wonder Woman, Squirrel Girl, & The Doctor team-up … is not something that is happening. Sorry! If I had my druthers, it would’ve happened already. Their joint powers & can-do attitudes would need to be pitted against a combined mega-obstacle just to be sporting! Okay, maybe that team-up would be too successful at solving all the multiverse’s problems for any successive fiction to matter.  But now that Spider-Man: Homecoming is out of the way, we can finally resume talking about these lovely ladies!

Spider-Man: Homecoming Is Fun Yet Not Definitive

And we’re back! I don’t always appear in photographs, but when I do I make the the front page of the July 3rd Chronicle Herald metro edition.

Here’s the non-grainy version.

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Oh, they made another Spider-Man reboot movie? Andrew from The Wages of Cinema told me I was required to see it with them for color commentary podcasting. He has a very menacing stare!

Websling on down for a SPOILER spectacular! THWIP!