You guys, I totally loved this movie, so I’m doubly glad that I picked up the Pops from this line. FALCON IS THE BOMB! 😀
Tag: the Avengers
DC vs Marvel
Today’s assignment surprised me a bit when I first read it. It required a bit more pre-thought than I’ve been giving to these posts so far.
“Don’t tell me you read Marvel comics.”
Jerry raised his eyes above the pages of the comic to glare at Andrew. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he inquired.
Andrew made a face. “Just that DC is way better, that’s all,” he replied.
“Are you kidding?” Jerry asked. “Marvel comics are way more fun than DC.”
“DC are way more gritty and realistic,” Andrew shot back.
“Nothing but angst, you mean,” Jerry grumbled.
“Besides,” Andrew said, “DC makes way better video games.”
Jerry raised an eyebrow. “Oh woo-hoo for them. Marvel makes way better movies.”
“DC has Batman.”
“Marvel has the Avengers.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes. “DC has Superman, the king of all superheroes.”
Jerry scoffed. “Superman is completely vanilla and boring as hell. Marvel’s Deadpool is a thousand times more awesome than Superman.”
“The Teen Titans!”
“The X-Men!”
“Kingdom Come!”
“The Infinity Gauntlet!”
“Th- Eek!” Jerry and Andrew both cried out in protest as their ears were snatched up by a pair of hands with bright red nail polish. The other patrons of the comic shop looked on and snickered as the co-owner of the shop glared down at the bickering boys. Sheepishly, they realized that she was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with Thor’s brother, Loki, dressed up and painted as Batman’s nemesis, the Joker.
“Alright, DC and Marvel,” she said in a tone that suggested annoyance mixed with amusement. “Are you going to play nice in my shop or do I have to ban you each to your respective versions of oblivion?”
Jerry looked at Andrew, and Andrew back at Jerry. They both spoke at the same time.
“Cross-over?”
A to Z Challenge Day 9: Iron Man (the Smarmiest Avenger)
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the get-go: Iron Man was not a childhood favorite of mine. I knew who he was, of course, but of the superheroes I followed as a child, he was not one. I liked Spiderman and Batman and the X-Men, and that was actually pretty much it. My childhood background in superheroes was a product of 1990’s cartoons, and though there was an Iron Man cartoon in that time span I don’t ever remember it being available on any channel that my family had. If I’m being perfectly, 100% honest with myself, I eventually hooked onto Iron Man only because of Robert Downey Jr. Before the 2008 blockbuster, I didn’t know a great deal about Iron Man other than that his real name was Tony Stark, and that he was a cocky millionaire with no actual superpowers. He had a hell of a lot of money, and he built himself a superhero suit. That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge.
But after watching that 2008 movie (and enjoying it thoroughly) I started to look back into the famous comic book character. What I discovered was that Robert Downey Jr. could scarcely have recreated a more accurate representation of Tony Stark. The “playboy, billionaire, philanthropist” may be over-confident and egotistical, but he also has a good heart, a will of steel, and a concrete desire to rid the world of evil. And he has real, relatable flaws – he drinks a hell of a lot, and also the aforementioned over-confidence issue), which always makes a charter feel more believable to me. I fell even more in love with the character once Joss Whedon had his turn at writing him for The Avengers. Yeah, I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a Whedonite. What’re you gonna do about it?
Long story short, in recent years I’ve become a big fan of a number of superheroes, and Iron Man is definitely up near the top of that list. Sometime in the (hopefully near) future I hope to obtain some of the comic compilation volumes that include his origin story so that I can learn more. Because, as previously mentioned in a number of other blog posts, I am an unbelievable nerd.
“What I’m Currently…”
Since yesterday was such a serious topic, I though I’d be a little more lighthearted today. I think it’s time for an installment of “What I’m Currently…”
“What I’m Currently Watching…”
At the moment I’m about halfway through season five of True Blood, with intentions of watching season six. I’ve already seen season five, but I’m re-watching it in order to rekindle my memories of what happened since I recently read a slew of the books that the show is based on (the Sookie Stackhouse novels). The two mediums take very different paths, so it’s hard to keep track of both at once.
That said, I love the show as much as I love the books. Whereas the books are written entirely from Sookie’s point of view, the show tells the stories of all of the characters – the humans, the vampires, the shifters and weres, and everything in between. There are several completely unnecessary characters in the books who have their own whole subplots in the show. There’s even one character who dies in the first book, but in the show he’s a very important character and is, in fact, one of my favorites. It all works out very nicely.
I realize that vampires and other supernatural creatures are not for everyone, but this show is worth giving it a try, in my opinion. For one thing the vampires are not flighty, sparkly, perfect examples of sex gods and goddesses who can do no wrong. Yes, there’s some romance involved in the show, but the vampires are also cruel, dangerous, and occasionally downright evil. Even the vampires that we’re meant to like regularly plot, kill, and torture, amongst other things. It’s a nice change of pace to have vampires who are protagonists but are also still monsters.
The show has a lot of other good points, but I don’t need to list them all here (*cough*incredibly hot actors*cough*). Just trust me on this one. Give the show a chance if you haven’t already.
“What I’m Currently Playing…”
I’ve finally gotten around to playing Soul Sacrifice for the Playstation Vita, and I have to say that I’m hooked. At first I was a bit confused because it’s one of those games that just throws you into the fray without explaining anything, but bit by bit you get filled in and everything starts to make sense.
At the core the game actually has a very simple premise: kill monsters and either save or sacrifice their souls to affect your character’s health and defense, or magic and attack power. Adding to that are a whole host of “offerings” (which boil down to your magic spells), “sigils” that you can equip to affect your stats, and the ability to sacrifice your own flesh (in the form of stat losses and the like) in exchange for one-time bursts of power to defeat difficult enemies. The whole thing is wrapped up in a strange but very interesting story.
To evidence just how interesting, I spent over two hours just reading all the background info on how each of the monsters became monsters in the first place. Two hours.
“What I’m Currently Reading…”
Make way for the Queen of all nerds. Though I haven’t touched it in two weeks because it’s too clunky to bring out West with me, I’ve been working my way through Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide. My husband got me a whole slew of these kinds of books for Christmas because I indicated that I’d like to learn more about different superheroes because I’m an enormous nerd.
Evidence!
The “Avengers” edition of these books gives bios and short histories of any Marvel character – hero or villain – who has ever been involved with any of the Avengers storylines. It really is quite interesting (if you’re an enormous nerd) but I have to say that the best part of reading this book is when my three-year-old daughter plunks down next to me and starts exclaiming, “Look! It’s IronMan! Look! It’s Hulk! Look! It’s Thor!”
And finally,
“What I’m Currently Thinking…”
…is that I’ll have plenty of time to watch, play, and read, now that I’m unemployed again. Ha ha ah ha ha ha…*sob sob*
(Just kidding, I’m not actually sobbing, don’t worry!)
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