Flying Sorcerers

The real world has let us all down very badly this past week.  So I was very happy to visit the mind-bending alternative realities of my favourite Marvel character, instead.

Doctor Strange has always been my favourite Marvel character, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, he always reminded me strongly of Vincent Price, and I believe that is who the look of the character was derived from.

Secondly, I’ve always preferred my heroes to think, not punch their way out of crises - hence my favourite characters tend to be Doctors and Professors, rather than Captains, commanders and mopey Dark Knights.

And thirdly: you never forget your first time. I was twelve and spending a period in hospital, flying full of pain killers and other drugs. My Mum visited gave me another mind-altering substance to help pass the time - a Doctor Strange comic. Very soon my own astral form was well-and-truly tripping through Steve Ditko’s psychedelic realms with the Sorcerer Supreme.

"They'll never get this stuff on screen", thought the Sorceror Supreme

Yes, this natty chap with the cloak and a severe deficit of modesty was the superhero for me, but never in the most skewed of cosmic states of existence would I have thought I’d see him on the big screen.  

By all accounts this somewhat risky investment in a little-known supporting character has magically transformed into yet another Box Office triumph for Marvel Studios.

The fact that they will stumble one day is surely inevitable, but to my great relief not with this particular title.  

In fact, Doctor Strange brings much that is new to the Marvel cinematic Universe - an altogether more cerebral approach to protecting our puny planet, culminating in a genuinely clever resolution.

Impressive visuals are a given. But speaking of becoming jaded, at this point I’d invite anyone likely to whine that they’ve seen it all before in Inception to stick their head in a bucket.

I love Inception as much as anyone, but what we saw there was a mere starting point to the truly astonishing vistas we see Cumberbatch, Ejiofor and Mikklesen tumbling through.  This is one of those rare films which demands you see it in 3-D.

And what a cast.  In Price’s absence I literally can’t imagine anyone but Cumberbatch in the role, and no doubt his star power is responsible for much of the film’s success. Mads Mikklesen has the thankless task of bringing a fairly stock-standard villain to life, but his talent for exquisitely-timed, dry-as-dust humour (see also Wilbur wants to kill Himself, 2003) create some of the film’s best scenes.

If I’m to be completely honest there seems to be a slight coldness about Doctor Strange which ultimately makes it less than the sum of its parts (the exhilaration and warmth of Civil War and The Avengers keep those two at the top for me). But its parts are utterly amazing - and I haven’t even mentioned Tilda Swinton or many people’s favourite character - the Cloak of Levitation.

If this studio can succeed so well with a relatively little-known, high-concept character like this, then I’m fast reaching a heretical conclusion.  If DC fail with their big-screen Wonder Woman next year (and I desperately hope they don’t), then perhaps they should just carry on churning out Batman films and hand everything else over to Marvel.

A Game of Marvels: Part Two - SHAZAM!

Billy, do be a hero…

Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it’s Captain Marvel -
the first superhero to be given a movie serial (played by cowboy star
and sometimes mummy, Tom Tyler).

The original Captain Marvel, created in 1939, possessed the Wisdom of Solomon, The strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, Invulnerability of Achilles and speed of Mercury. Young Billy Batson only had to speak the acronym made from the first letters of those mythological deities names: SHAZAM, and ‘the world’s mightiest mortal’ would appear in his place.

It’s a wonderful concept, which DC comics finally admitted it to themselves in 1972, licensing the rights from the company they forbade from continuing the Captain’s adventures in 1953 - Fawcett comics.

Unbelievably, before this happened, yet another Captain Marvel appeared briefly on the comic stands.

Always falling apart in a crisis, this Captain Marvel didn't last very long.

An android who could disassemble himself by shouting “Split” and recombine with the suspiciously familiar cry of “Xam!” was published by MF Publications under the title of Captain Marvel in 1966 but only lasted a few issues before splitting forever.

Room for one more?
During the 1950s L Miller and Son published black and white reprints of Captain Marvel’s adventures in Britain. When DC successfully shut down Fawcett comics continuation of the character, Miller and Son found suddenly themselves deprived of their successful product. So they created a barely altered version of the Captain called Marvelman, popular enough to run until 1963. “Kimota!” (‘Atomik’ backwards) replaced the catchphrase ’Shazam’. The character was later revived in 1982 under the name Miracleman (Marvel comics objected to the use of their name), but that’s another story.

Marvelman, and the angsty, 1982 revived version 'Miracleman'.

Back to DC and their purchase of the original Captain Marvel at the beginning of the 1970s. They found that they now owned the character, but not the title, which had been trademarked by Marvel comics since 1967. And so, whenever the Captain has appeared in his own DC comics adventure, the name on the cover has been Shazam! (leading to the ‘Doctor Who’ syndrome - it’s the title of his series, not his name)

DC recognises the character's brilliance and 'with one magic word' bring
him back in 1972. Marvel Comics objected to the tagline 'The original Captain Marvel'
so it was eventually changed to 'the world's mightiest mortal'.

As an upbeat Golden Age figure Captain Marvel has had a checkered history in the modern DC comics world, joining the Justice League International but most successfully used as a supporting character. Altercations with his historical rival Superman are often depicted, usually as a result of one or the other falling under malign mind control.

Boys will be boys... not for the first, or last, time Captain Marvel
and Superman come to blows over a misunderstanding.
(Personally, I'd like to see them both just beat up Batman)

Most recently, he has been sporting a ‘hoodie’ and the moniker 'Shazam' in an attempt to emphasise the magical aspects of the character.  Hmmm...

It remains to be seen where DC's most recent reboot will leave the Captain. But despite these abuses the world’s mightiest mortal perseveres. He is still an instantly recognisable figure and DC have even optimistically announced an upcoming film version. Having the Marvel and DC Captain Marvels in the cinema at the same time would be quite something.

More than any other superhero, the original Captain Marvel remains representation of a sunnier, more innocent past, ‘the Man of Yesterday’ rather than tomorrow, and perhaps that’s why he is still popular today.

A Game of Marvels: Part One - The Marvel Captain

What’s in a name?

My Dad turned 80 recently, and unlike many people advancing in age seems to broaden his mind with every passing year. He’s even happy to talk about superheroes and his favourite has always been Captain Marvel.
So he might be interested to hear that there is a Captain Marvel film slated for release in 2019, but the not-so-good news is this...

When he talks about Captain Marvel he means this Gentleman

When Marvel refer to their upcoming film they mean this Lady

                                                             

And furthermore, when I first read
Captain Marvel he looked this

Oops, I mean this
(see you in court, Pixar)

And those are only the best-known three of many figures who have held the name Captain Marvel in comic book history.

How on earth in the litigious world of comics, where rival publishers sue at the merest hint of a similar costume detail, did a convoluted situation like this ever arise?

It all began in 1939 when comic publishers Fawcett attempted to launch ‘Flash’ comics featuring a super powered figure called Captain Thunder.

Both those names had already been used and so the character was relaunched in 1940 as my Dad’s favourite: Captain Marvel in Whiz comics.

Although the name was now cleared, we can’t help but draw similarities between that cover, and this one featuring the first appearance of a another caped superhuman from two years previously.

Captain Marvel's prototype and official first appearance.
Don't know who the guy on the right is...

The company now known as DC, publishers of Superman’s adventures, certainly noticed as well. As Captain Marvel’s popularity began to soar, out-selling every other title on the comic stands, including the Man of Steel’s, they decided to do something about it and took Fawcett to court.

Although one of the keys to Captain Marvel’s success was that his adventures appealed more to a younger demographic (his alter-ego is Billy Batson - a 12-year-old boy, and he was later joined by Mary Marvel - a Girl’s Own superheroine), DC made a case that the ‘big red cheese’ infringed too closely on the appearance and character of their ‘boy in blue’.

It didn’t go DC’s way at first, but Fawcett eventually settled out-of-court and in 1953 agreed to cease publication of Captain Marvel. The truth was that the character’s popularity had been in steady decline since his heyday in the war years (battling nemeses like ‘Captain Nazi) and continuing the fight was no longer worth it for Fawcett.

Enter Marvel comics - opportunists extraordinaire, but also probably justifiably anxious that a character bearing their company name had belonged to another publisher.

They bought the rights to the Captain Marvel name and in 1967 launched the first in a long line of characters to bear the title. In the Marvel Universe, the name Captain Marvel is more of a franchise than a single figure (enabling them to retain the trademark), and the current (7th!) incarnation: Carol Danvers, is admittedly a welcome female presence in a comic universe which features relatively few memorable superheroines.

Marvel's first go at their own Captain -
who's attempt to merge into one of our Earth
crowds undetected appears to be an epic fail.

Ironically, the first Marvel iteration of the Captain was even more like Superman than Fawcett’s - an alien called Mar-Vell sent to our Planet who adopts a secret identity and stays to become Earth’s champion. A member of the Kree race (currently name-checked vigorously in the Agent’s of Shield TV series), this Captain Marvel switches his allegiance to humanity, and in 1969 received a makeover which lead to my jumping-on point for the character.

This change of costume didn't do much for the characters anonymity,
But he could swap bodies with an ordinary human for a limited period.
(presumably by saying "Shazam"?)

But Marvel Comic’s success has always been due to them never being content to simply follow the conventions and in 1982, in arguably the first-ever graphic novel, Captain Marvel died (really died). Despite having become one of the most cosmically powerful figures in the Marvel universe the Captain falls victim to lung cancer (in a convoluted tale I’m certainly not going to go into here), giving rise to a succession of figures adopting his mantle.

The original Captain Marvel meets some of Marvel's Captains

.
Former ‘Ms Marvel’ Carol Danvers currently holds the title, and has built an impressive readership of her own. You go, Girl.

Ms Marvel (later to become Captain Marvel) flies into action,
apparently unconcerned that she appears to have left half her costume behind.

But the original Captain Marvel which Fawcett created wasn’t to remain absent for long. Lightning was to strike again, within the pages of the company who once banished him forever.

Next time
A Game of Marvels Part 2: SHAZAM!

Marvel Arch

We all have to start somewhere, even billion-dollar film franchises.

Excelsior!

Marvel Studios have surfed an almost unbroken wave of colossal financial success since their first feature, Iron Man, in 2008.  Even their lesser performing films have made back more than double their budgets, while their heaviest hitter: The Avengers, made over one and half billion US dollars.

I’ve still yet to see Captain America; Civil War but apparently my ticket money is going to make very little difference to the stellar box-office takings of this take on an armoured billionaire v a big blue Boy Scout, done right.

Overall, it’s a track record which must surely drive rival studios, and comics publishers, batty.

Even other companies fortunate enough to own rights to certain Marvel characters have found themselves sitting on a goldmine - 20th Century Fox made one of their biggest profits in history with Deadpool earlier this year, while Sony Pictures still own Marvels’ highest earning figurehead to date - Spider-Man.

But it hasn’t always been this way.  In 1986 rival comics company DC were still basking in the success of three Superman feature films when the first Marvel character made his way to the big screen.  Was it one of their pantheon of super-powered heroes or a mighty-muscled Avenger? Actually, even though there had been a very cheap Captain America serial in the 1940s, Marvel’s first big budget cinema star was … a talking duck.

Howard the Duck, starring a wise-cracking waterfowl from another dimension, was produced by no less a name than George Lucas, starred Tim Robbins and boasted effects by ILM. However the end result was unanimously mauled by critics and still listed by the LA times in 2014 as one of the costliest box office flops of all time.  Out for a duck - this was hardly a foreshadowing of the colossal amount of love and revenue Marvel’s film adaptations generate today.

Howard the Duck returned at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy (inset)
almost 30 years after his disastrous debut.

In New Zealand in 1977, eager youngsters were able to part with their pocket money to see Spider-Man on the big screen.  But this certainly wasn’t a Hollywood-produced blockbuster.  Instead, and certainly not for the last time, this was an American TV movie pilot was being hawked around overseas cinemas.

Star Nicolas Hammond made enough of an impact for those same kids to again fork out money for the sequel (actually two episodes of the ensuing TV series edited together) and Hammond was even invited to take part in Television New Zealand’s 1979 Telethon.

The original Spider-Man pretty much did whatever a man can.

Enjoying relative success with Spidey, and the long-running incredible Hulk television series starring Bill Bixby it was to be the small screen where Marvel focussed their efforts for the next decade.  And it was also here that a succession of TV Movies which would probably make contemporary Marvel executives want to wear masks themselves, resulted.  

Later this year audiences will be able to thrill to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sorcerer Supreme: Doctor Strange, but few will remember the 1978 Universal TV pilot movie of the same name.  Starring a permed actor called Peter Hooten, but also featuring a slightly better known thespian called John Mills, it’s ratings did not lead to a series being picked up. Marvel head Stan Lee kindly suggested this could have been due to Doctor Strange’s time-slot opposite acclaimed historical series Roots. 

It remains to be seen whether Benedict Cumberbatch will be a better Doctor Strange
than Peter Hooten was in 1978.

The following year no less a figure than Captain America exploded onto the small screen in a white and blue motorcycle helmet.  Reb Brown starred as Cap in two TV Movies again for Universal, promptly disappearing again until the current success of the character encouraged DVDs of these films to begin furtively reappearing on retail shelves.  An even lesser-regarded direct-to-video Captain America film starring Matt Salinger (this time with little rubber wings affixed the sides of his head), appeared in 1990, to howls of critical derision.

Captain America through the ages (Chris Evans not pictured)

It was the turn of two more Avengers to meet small screen ignominy in 1988, when Thor and the Hulk combined forces in TV series revival attempt: The Incredible Hulk Returns.  Chris Hemsworth’s current charismatic portrayal of the 'norse god' Thor has made him an undeniable access point to Marvel for female viewers, but Eric Kramer’s TV movie portrayal, clad in tight leather pants and a very shaggy jerkin, made considerably less impact.

By Thunder - it's Hammer Time!

As usual, the TV alter ego of the Hulk himself was, ‘David’ (rather than “Bruce’) Banner as executives decided to break from decades of comics tradition because the alliterative name sounded ‘too gay’. Having him played by an actor named Bill Bixby seemed to render this dubious point moot.

By the 1990s three of the now-beloved Avengers were down and out, reputations besmirched and options for series abandoned.  Could any further humiliation possibly be waiting in store for mighty Marvel?

Samuel L Jackson has met universal acclaim for his recurring supporting role of Nick Fury, giving support and guidance to the Avengers through almost all their films.  But before Fury was ever played by one of contemporary cinema’s paragon of cool he was first portrayed in a 1998 TV movie pilot by another iconic figure: David Hasselhoff.  Written by David Goyer, whose work was most recently seen in Batman v Superman for DC, a series was once again not forthcoming, despite the best efforts of the Hoff.

Samuel L Jackson wasn't a patch on the Hoff

But as any comic reader knows, the hero is always brought lowest before rising up to triumph in the end.  As we approached the millennium, lesser-powered Marvel characters The Punisher and Blade quietly laid groundwork for big-hitters the X-Men and Spider-Man to re-take the big screen, and since the formation of marvel Studios in 2008, past indiscretions with live action depictions of their mightiest heroes appear to have been forgotten.

But perhaps Marvel are now also confident enough to believe that you should never forget where you came from.  Viewers waiting for the traditional post credits sequence at the end of the phenomenally successful Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014 might have been surprised to meet a certain talking duck. 
Welcome back, Howard, the world is ready for you at last.

And here is a condensed version on Stuff.co.nz, with video clips:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/79621718/Captain-America-The-films-Marvel-wants-you-to-forget

Girl Powered

Breaking Bad meets The Matrix, meets Doctor Who (casting-wise,
at least), in Daredevil’s neighbourhood - how could that ever
not be the best thing ever?

Well, it very nearly is.  Whereas this was the year where Marvel films really started to let their formula show - neither Ant Man or ‘Ages of Dull-tron’ will be on my top ten list for 2015 - the smaller screen was where the house of Spidey triumphed.  Even Agents of Shield appeared to settle down a little and try to weave it’s multitude of wildly thrashing plot threads into a coherent storyline (take note Avengers). 

But the real revelation was Daredevil; shaking off the spectre of a badly received early 2000’s film adaptation to deliver a powerhouse action-drama series which just happened to feature a superhero, who doesn’t even get his costume until the final episode.

So that was already enough to make me confident that Marvel owned the tube (I’m enjoying Supergirl but still haven’t bothered with Arrow or Flash - sorry DC), and then along came Jessica Jones. 

"Judge me by my size, would you?"

I had no idea who this character was, beyond the fact that she and two other third tier Marvel titles were eventually going to combine with Daredevil to form a (Quote): “Gritty street-level Avengers-style team”.

A quick look at Wikipedia didn’t do much to fill me with confidence, either - a post-traumatic stress-disordered former superheroine, shaken so badly by an encounter with a mind controlling villain that she’s hung up her costume and is essentially living the life of a victim, sounded frankly awful.

However, so much shared DNA with the sublime Daredevil series couldn’t be all bad, and the fact that there was such a strong behind the camera representation of women producing, writing and directing assured me that this wasn’t going to be a story sensationalising female vulnerability.

Any lingering doubts were blown away as soon as lead Krysten Ritter appears on screen.  Previously seen in Breaking Bad as another feisty character, she is a real piece of work here. Exuding attitude (and screen presence) at toxic levels, Jessica Jones is self-admittedly rude to everyone, hard-drinking, hard-talking (the F-bomb in a Marvel series!), and when the situation calls for it, hard-fighting too. Ritter’s uncompromising performance makes her largely unexplained powers the least-interesting part of her characterisation - she’s quite formidable enough without them.

Luke Cage: No 'fro under that helmet, sadly.

With New York being what it is in the Marvel universe she soon becomes involved with another ‘special’ person, although neither suspect the other’s abilities initially.  I was aware of ‘Luke Cage: Power Man’ when I  read the occasional Marvel comic in the mid 70s.  Back then he sported a wicked ‘fro, which has since been updated to the standard issue shaven head, (and a certain Nicolas Coppola borrowed the character’s surname when he became an actor).  He’s a man of few words, and unfortunately he and Jones have a tangled and tragic past history which will severely test their relationship.

Luke Cage is destined for his own series next, and Mike Colter’s charismatic performance certainly justifies it.  But this is Jessica Jones’ show, and for now he is something of an anomaly, because almost every other character is  a powerfully-portrayed woman.

Hey, Carrie-Anne. The first, and latest, modern breed of
science fiction superheroine combine forces.  Sort of...

Carrie-Anne Moss, who spearheaded the new kick-ass breed of female genre characters at the end of the 90s in the Matrix, is equally impressive as attorney Jeri Hogarth. Her wife, girlfriend, client and Jessica’s adopted sister Trish all round out the roster of formidable women, with a late tie-in appearance from Daredevil’s Rosario Dawson providing the icing on the cake.

Our villain, Kilgrave, is David Tennant getting his teeth into the role of a lifetime.  Like Fisk in Daredevil, this is a character so bereft of any moral code that he emerges through our usual expectations of a villain to become someone we find ourselves alternately hating and then sympathising with. His own potent super-ability makes him supremely dangerous and the purposes he puts it towards with his female victims (Jones included) leads the programme into very dark waters.

You may have faced down the daleks in the past,
but you really should consider running this time....

The fact that Jones initially leaves a trail of extremely bloody destruction in her wake, failing again and again to save those she’s promised to protect, compounds this.  Friends and even Jessica herself will lose faith in her ability to win through, but this is a rough ride worth hanging on for.

This isn’t a programme for your usual comic reader.  If you want a bloodless, asexual superheroine series watch CBS’s Supergirl (I’m a fan. none-the-less), but if you can take something with considerably more bite and emotional resonance, take a walk through the Netflix Hell’s Kitchen, instead. This story of a damaged and guilt-stricken character eventually finding redemption and her own potential for good makes the caustic Ms Jones possibly the most relatable and human superhero ever put on screen.

Highly recommended.

What a wonderful world

What do Spider-Man, the Loch Ness Monster and German Opera have in common?

I have a large collection of hardback books which, when we finally have our much-discussed living room shelf unit built, will never be allowed to abide there.  And this isn't an issue of age-restricted material (unless you count the barely fettered decolletages of the Hammer ladies) but more one of minor embarrassment to my wonderful wife.  Yes, she'll watch any old tosh with me if I pick my moment, but to have shelves full of books devoted to horror, science fiction  and fantasy films and television in full view of visitors who might have otherwise thought we're normal, seems to be a bridge too far.

So solid, respectable tomes about gardening, travel, history, handicrafts and, if I'm lucky, astronomy will make the living room bookshelves creak instead, while my extensive but slightly worrying collection will remain fittingly hidden away from sunlight.

Like the creatures within their pages, these books might be sometimes shunned and misunderstood, but my Mum actually started this collection, buying me my first 'coffee table book' about monsters when I was still having single digit birthdays.
 

And what a book it was, becoming a treasured possession all through my life. Despite being a clumsy and often absent minded person I somehow manage to take incredibly good care of my books, and my copy of this particular volume: The Horrific World of Monsters, still looks as if it could have been bought yesterday.

I've been to Bran Castle, alleged by this book to be the birthplace of
Vlad Tepes, and it really is as pretty as it looks in this inset.

I've amassed many books on the same subject since but this one remains a curiosity, in the best possible way.  First of all, the creatures within are arranged alphabetically, an unusual move which you think might spell disaster when you reach less fertile letters.  But not this book. Not only did it cover the expected Universal and Hammer monsters but also creatures born of every old world mythology - from the British Isles, through Scandinavia, Europe and the ancient Mediterranean, Egypt and the Middle East, Asia and then into Russia. As an introduction to classical and medieval myth and legend alone (illustrated with art from the likes of Goya, Tibaldi and Bosch), this book was worth its weight in golden Fleece.

But this was just the beginning, true believers.  In my last post I 'came out' as someone who prefers to 'make mine Marvel', and that might stretch all the way back to this book.  Because also within its pages were Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and numerous Stan Lee spawned super-villains. It seems insane, but page 86 for example gives us this bewildering spectrum of subjects: Redcap and the Roc from British and Islamic folklore respectively, The Reptile from Hammer, Spider-Man's minor nemesis the Rhino and Tolkien's Ringwraiths. How wonderfully bonkers is that?

The 'Horrific' Four (coming to a cinema near you soon), sharing a page with the Fly,
Frankenstein, a Wagnerian Opera and an Irish feathered cyclops.

Still want more? Well, dinosaurs obviously, all photographs of 'life-like' models, as many of the books from the mid-seventies liked to use. But possibly the best was still to come: Television wasn't to be neglected, with Quatermass and Star Trek touched upon, but Doctor Who's big three: the Daleks, Cybermen and Ice Warriors were  each given lavish picture spreads. This officially made The Horrific World of Monsters The Best Book Ever.

Good luck spotting this scene from the  Doctor Who story the caption says it's from. 
I think it might actually be a publicity shot from a BBC exhibition - but it's still brilliant.

From it's atmospheric cover painting, with 'likenesses' of Lee, Karloff and Chaney just the right side of copyright infringement and a devil tail on the bright yellow title lettering, to the distinctly '70s typography throughout, this book was patient zero of my life-long disorder regarding books, monsters and books about monsters.

I'll be disinterring many other volumes never to be seen in our Living Room in posts to come.

Better the Devil

Like the character itself, Netflix's Daredevil series triumphs
against all odds.

I wish I knew who to credit with this striking graphic, but it certainly wasn't me.

 I'll be honest, I didn't really mind Fox's 2003 film version of Daredevil.  It seemed to be well cast and well-meaning, but was just a passing blip on everyone's sonar-sense. And when it is remembered at all it seems to be with some degree of derision.

When Marvel recently announced that Daredevil was coming to the small screen I might have rolled my eyes.  I assumed that getting a television series while all his Marvel stablemates had mega-budget cinema outings was the equivalent of being put in the 'naughty corner', and a publicity still of an awkward-looking Charlie Cox in an ill-fitting costume did little to allay my misgivings.  Then the somewhat overcooked Age of Ultron lowered my Marvel-lous expectations even further.

But I had the opportunity to watch the Daredevil series recently, so out of curiosity gave the first episode a look.  I was reasonably entertained but a little ambivalent, so I think it might have been the fascinating title sequence alone which encouraged me to try episode two.

And by the end of this second part I was completely hooked - I'd never seen anything like it before.  It's a very raw and uncompromising hour of TV, but its unflinching narrative serves a purpose.  Four major characters are given more definition than many other shows can give in weeks and our hero, although barely able to stand, shows a determination which transcends this genre.  What he manages to achieve at the end of the episode isn't merely heroics for their own sake, but an unsettling demonstration of inhuman determination and mind-over-lascerated matter.  I'll admit it, the bravura six-minute continuous-shot brawl in the corridor is a very guilty pleasure, but by the end you are 100% behind Matt Murdoch.

Murdoch is forever making the excuse of walking into a door to explain his injuries.

From this point in the series just continues getting better. Charlie Cox  as Murdoch is extremely charismatic despite the fact that his eyes are rarely seen, and Vincent D'Onofrio as his nemesis Wilson Fisk is equally terrifying in both his serene and berserker moments.  I'm not referring to them as Daredevil or Kingpin because the programme doesn't either (not until the very final moments for DD, at least).

Don't call him 'slap-head'...

Comic adaptations work best when they manage to present their subject in a way that seems completely fresh.  It must be too easy to fall into the same short-hand which comics use, where characters are so often well-worn archetypes or placeholder symbols; but this series gives us a familiar Marvel character who isn't named or even seen in costume until the last scenes of the final episode, and the production is stronger for it.

Such expectations are confounded from the beginning. Fisk is seen to suffer a crisis of the soul which is not directly brought about by our hero, and then given a touching romance plot-line which villains would seldom be granted anywhere else.  Murdoch spends an episode and a half recovering from a near-fatal beating, during which time his best friend abandons him.

And yes, on a baser level the action is great.  The fight choreography is like nothing I've ever seen before, rapid, gymnastic and convincing for someone who is using all his senses except sight.
I've been told that this series is attempting to steal some of DCs thunder because of similarities to Arrow, repeating many of the beats and stylings of that show.  I didn't last past the pilot of that one so can't judge, but for that reason I'm guessing Daredevil may not appeal to Arrow fans.  A shame if so: I honestly struggle to name one gripe about this vibrant and gritty new addition to Marvel's successful adaptations (a second series was greenlit very soon after Daredevil's debut).

Well, maybe one.. I'm still not entirely sure about that suit.  But even that says a lot about this programme.  Many superhero adaptations draw audiences who just want to see the main character in costume - Daredevil might be the first which actually delivers more without it.

It might take some getting used to, but this suit really is for his own good.

Caping mechanism

There used to be a time when Marvel could only get Lou Ferrigno in a ripped shirt and kids' cartoons on-screen... 

March 1941: who'd ever have thought there'd be any kind of future
for a character like this after WWII, much less in 21st century cinemas?

I'm still processing my thoughts about seeing Age of Ultron, last night.  But initially my reactions are that :
A) It does confirm that the first Avengers film was something very special indeed
and
B) Despite more smiting and exploding then I've ever seen packed into any film before, it was the character moments and humour which I enjoyed the most.

In the meantime, here's an article I wrote earlier this week for the Ultron premier.

Superheroes have soared from comics and Children’s television to consistently top world-wide Box Office returns for the last decade and a half.

Masked marvels have flitted across movie screens since the 1940s, and the profusion of Marvel comics adaptations packing them in at the multiplexes now could merely be seen as the third age of superhero cinema.

DC comics' (Marvel's perennial competitor) flagship characters: Superman and Batman, first appeared on celluloid in their own Columbia serial adventures between 1948 and 1950.
These same two characters later stormed the cinemas anew, each in their own four part film series spanning the late seventies to the end of the 1990s, this time with vast budgets and star names to bring a new credibility to the genre.

So where was the now-ubiquitous Marvel while Superman and Batman were hogging the limelight?  Apart from the fondly-remembered Incredible Hulk television series and a couple of modest Spider-Man TV movies they focused mainly on animated adventures and very gradually built up the public recognition of their characters beyond comic book pages.

A sophisticated animated series featuring Marvel's mutant heroes the X-Men had done well for Fox studios during the 1990s, attracting a sizeable adult audience. When Fox paired the property with a young director who had just scored a major hit with a modestly-budgeted ensemble film, the Usual Suspects, it was the beginning of a cinema revolution.

Bryan Singer's X-Men (2000) was a surprise hit, launching Marvel onto the mainstream big screen, (as well as the career of an Australian stage performer called Hugh Jackman). When Sony Pictures launched their phenomenally-successful Spider-Man film franchise two years later, a costumed stampede from the comic book page to the multiplexes began, with mixed, but generally highly-successful results.

Marvels' pride at the how well their licensed progeny were doing in the 'real world' must have been tempered by the fact that they were only seeing a portion of the enormous profits . Buying back the under-performing Hulk from Universal, the recently formed Marvel Studios put an audacious plan into motion. Beginning with a title which had little public recognition: Iron Man, they launched what has become known as MCU - (the Marvel Cinematic Universe). This was to be an interconnected series of movie adaptations of various other characters, with the intention of combining them all in a huge multi-hero spectacular, four years later.

Not only did each of these films pack cinemas, but their climactic combination in The Avengers (2012), became the third highest-grossing film in history.
Three years on and the world shows little sign of tiring of the exploits of these powered-up wish-fulfillment figures. The old guard from DC: Superman and Batman, are also drawing their own latest generations of film fans for the third time.

But these films are certainly not cheap to make, (the Avengers cost $220 million), and could it be that even super-budgeted heroes have to come back down to Earth eventually? Industry legend Steven Spielberg warned in 2013 that the film industry could be in for massive changes ahead:
 "... there's eventually going to be an implosion, or a big meltdown... where three or four, or maybe even a half dozen, mega-budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm."

Time will surely tell, but in the meantime it's certain that Marvel's finest will have more than enough to occupy themselves with in the latest cinema juggernaut opening today: Avengers: Age of Ultron.

It's early days for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but for now Spider-Man is Marvel's biggest-earning movie property at $3.9b. (and I don't think that even includes Nicolas Hammond's contributions)

Yearly projections

The medium of film seems an appropriate way for this blog to look back on the year that was.

2013 is almost over, and in terms of cinema entertainment it’s been a memorable year.

Marvel films continue their, until now, unchallenged domination of the big screen, but wait, up in the sky, is it a bird, is it a plane..?

Alas, this list is dominated by large, noisy 3-D blockbusters, but spectacle is best appreciated on a big screen, after all.

A couple of smaller films brought plenty of film magic of an altogether different kind and I only just managed to get tickets to duck Matt Smith’s chin in 3-D. 

It seems that I may have missed ‘the film of the year’ however, as Gravity continues to attract praise from pretty-much everyone.

Here are some of my highlights (and a notable low-point).

Skyfall
Although released in late 2012, we saw Skyfall at the beginning of this year, making Bond the first of three long-running fictional heroes celebrating an anniversary on-screen in 2013. And if this film put a foot wrong I certainly didn’t see it. I particularly loved the more personal, scaled-down resolution, with no large-scale assault on a super villain’s lair to stop a satellite-borne laser beam starting World War Three, this time.  Instead, Bond is desperately trying to get two elderly British thesps to safety through the besieged, fast disintegrating remnants of his family estate, and it’s riveting. 
Another highlight was young Ben Wilshaw as the new Q.  Making an instant impact with screen-presence well-beyond his age, some suggest him as a natural choice for the new Doctor when Matt Smith announces his departure.  By the year’s end Wilshaw has been cast as another icon instead: Freddie Mercury.

Iron Man 3

Two sequels and a last-chance reboot dominated the middle of the year, and I made it my business to organise group viewings of all of them with friends of varying enthusiasm.

First out of the gate was Tony Stark’s latest outing (which apparently could have been the original Iron Man 2 if the unexpected success of the first film hadn’t produced that ill-advisedly premature and hurried sequel a few years back.)

Downey delivers, as usual, and the idea of having Stark suffering from post-Avengers combat syndrome was a fascinating one.  Pairing him with the antithesis of a cute kid (Downey jnr, jnr?) lead to the film’s most charming scenes, Ben Kingsley is exceptional and Gwyneth Paltrow wears a vest top very well. But somehow this sequel fades from memory quite quickly after the climactic explosions die away.

Star Trek – Into Darkness

The biggest and perhaps only criticism I’ve heard of this film is that “It wasn’t as good as the first one”.  I suspect chances were it was never going to manage that particular feat, and I personally loved Abram’s second Trek.  An intriguing refracted image of the original Star Trek 2, on steroids, it also managed to tell an exciting, original story and the large cast were well-served.  Benedict Cumberbatch shows why he is everywhere at the moment.

Man of Steel

I’ve wrote plenty about this film here http://fasmatodea.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/steel-works.html
and it just might be my favourite cinema experience of 2013 due to the intense feeling of relief that this man can still make us believe he can fly.  Perhaps a little cold and nihilistic at times, this is none-the-less the best possible start for the ‘other’ comic superheroes’ advance on the big screen. Led - as is only right - by Superman. Watch out Marvel!

 Pacific Rim

Aargh. How could this come from the mind of the same man who made Pan’s Labyrinth? As clanking and colossally monstrous as its ‘stars’, but not in a good way.  Please redeem yourself with your Lovecraft film, Mr Del Toro.

Song for Marion

Not seen on the big screen, we enjoyed this, appropriately, in more intimate surroundings at home.  A lonely man struggles with the loss of his wife only to finally realise that good can come from any situation and it’s never to late to change.  This is the epitome of a well-made, modestly budgeted British film with several hundred times more heart than anything on offer at the multiplexes, as brilliant performances and plenty of humour take you through a spectrum of emotions before thankfully coming to rest on ‘life-affirming’.  It probably helped that the original General Zod: Terence Stamp, the ninth Doctor: Christopher Eccleston, and the gorgeous Gemma Arterton were in the lead roles, too.

The Magic of Belle Isle

Perhaps a state-side answer to Song for Marion, another loveable curmudgeon finds redemption and a second chance due to the irrepressible natures of those around him, and a dog called Spot.  Morgan Freeman brings even more charisma than usual to the role of disabled former-author Monte Wildhorn and the every-day eccentricity of Belle Isle, combined with priceless, and sometimes elaborate, dialogue helps make this lovely little film irresistible.

The Day of the Doctor

I saw the Doctor Who 50^th anniversary special with my wife and father, in a cinema packed with fans of all ages, in 3-D.  The audience was roughly 50% female, some wore Matt Smith costumes, some took their parents, even their Grandparents (or is that the other way-around?).  This alone would have been enough to burst my sad little fan-heart with joy, but impossibly, The Day of the Doctor actually lived up to its hype.  After a very patchy series earlier in the year, the programme-makers somehow got back in touch with the essence of ‘Who’ just in time, and literally gave us a celebration which had something for everyone.  Twelve (“No sir; thirteen!”) spinning little blue boxes felt like every Christmas present ever, arriving all at once.

Beyond the Edge

A late arrival (saw it yesterday!) and well-worth inclusion. I researched Hillary and Tenzing’s climb fairly exhaustively earlier this year (see infographic below), but this documentary finally conveyed what the climb was actually like, from the treacherous Khumbu icefall to the terrifying vertical Hillary’s Step. Superb research gives new insights to a story already familiar to many, while beautifully filmed recreations of key events convey the emotion and spectacle.  The achievement is humbling, yet stirs National pride at the same time, and our cat carries the name Ed with justified honour.