eBay and what I'm selling this week (6/25)

Refer back to this post for the background.

Here's what I have going this week:

Yes, that's the first appearance of Deadpool. I know you want it. You can find it here.

Are you guilty? Find it here.

Or do you have fear?

Or have you gone COSMIC?

All that plus GI Joe comics, more of all those comics above, plus Mage Knight, and Lord of the Rings figures!

Go get some stuff!

Deadpool 2: No Subtitle or Anything (Seems Like a Wasted Opportunity To Me) (a movie review post)

I suppose the first question people will have about Deadpool 2 is, "Is it as good as the first one?" Which is a more than fair question considering how out-of-the-box the first Deadpool was. It's the kind of thing that can be difficult to followup. You know, just how sophomore releases from bands sometimes end their careers.

You'll be happy to know that 2, in this case, is just as good as the first. I'm not going to go as far as some reviews I've seen and say it's better, because I don't think it is, but it certainly doesn't fumble the ball.
To mix a bunch of metaphors.
Maybe I should say drop the mic? Except that means something completely different.
If this was Deadpool, this would be the point he'd stick his head in your screen and say something about where you could put the mic.
Or the ball.
Or something about balls.

Actually, I went to see it as a double feature, which you might say is a lot of Deadpool, but it didn't feel like it. And that's without an intermission between the two films! The second one flowed pretty seamlessly from the first and continued on with the same tone and humor, so I would say the two movies are pretty on par with each other.

And, you know, sure, I could pick it apart; like the plot in the second one feels a bit contrived, but it feels more contrived than it actually is. When you want to introduce a time-travelling character from the future, it's hard to do other than to just have him show up. Which is not to say they didn't provide the back story for that, because they did. It all works just fine, but it felt a bit contrived, at least to me. Not enough to actually bother me, just enough to notice.

The one thing that is decidedly better is the closing credits scene, and that's saying a lot considering the scene at the end of the credits from the first movie is one of the best ones ever done, almost as good as the one from Ferris Bueller. And this one is better. So much better. If the movie had sucked but still had this end-credits scene, it would be still be worth seeing. Yes, it's that good.

A few other good things of note in the movie:

Josh Brolin. You have to hand it to him; he's captured roles of two major Marvel characters. That's pretty impressive in my book. And, well, I like Josh, and he does a good job as Cable.

Zazie Beetz: She's awesome as Domino. I don't really remember much about Domino from the comics other than that she was supposed to be a big deal character. I have a stack of issues of her first appearance in fact and, for a while, she was a big deal character. I guess. But I have no strong memories of her beyond her introduction. Which just so happened to be the first appearance of Deadpool, too.

X-Force: OMG LOL!
Now I can't wait for this movie.

Brad Pitt: What? You didn't know he was in the movie?

Basically, if you liked (loved) the first Deadpool, there is no reason to expect that you won't feel the same way about this one. They even managed to make an opening credit sequence that nearly matches the opening credit sequence of the first one in yummy goodness, and that's saying something considering the opening sequence from the first Deadpool may be the best opening credit sequence ever made. Or, at least, since Star Wars dispensed with one altogether.

Logan (a movie review post)

Relatively speaking, I was an early adopter when it comes to Wolverine. I was already following him as a character when his original limited series came out in 1982, and I would be lying to say that he was not one of my main reasons for following the X-Men through the 80s. Well, Wolverine along with the writing of Chris Claremont, unarguably one of the best comic book writers ever. Ironically, Claremont didn't care for Wolverine as a character and almost dropped him completely from the X-Men lineup in the late 70s. It was John Byrne who saved the character out of a fondness for a fellow Canadian.

That said, it's been 15 years since the last time I read any Wolverine (or any comics at all, really, other than a few here or there that one or more of my kids might have had lying around), that being Origin,

a story I didn't much care for overall. It suffers from many of the same problems as Logan, those being trying to fill in details around a character to achieve a particular goal even when those details don't really fit with the character that has been created.

Mostly, though, what Logan proves is that Fox is no more capable of creating a cohesive continuity for their super hero films than Warner Brothers. It's sort of like having your tea bag break in your cup of tea. If you're careful and drink slowly, you can manage to mostly keep the tea leaves out of your mouth... until you get to that point where you have to throw the last quarter of it out because the leaves are too dense. Until that point, though, the tea is enjoyable as long as you keep it to small doses.

So, yes, Logan is a mostly enjoyable film. It accomplishes the one thing I'm sure all Wolverine fans have been waiting to see: Wolverine really cutting loose with his claws without the need of keeping the bloodshed to a PG-13 rating. And cut loose he does: arms, legs, and heads. That alone is probably worth the movie for the true fans.

The aspect of the movie I found most interesting was the question raised about mutants and their powers when they get old. Of course, the movie only works around the question without ever really addressing it, but we do get to see some of the effects in the aged Charles Xavier as he struggles to maintain control over his mental abilities.

Stephen Merchant as Caliban was a pleasant surprise. I like Merchant, and he was perfect in this role. Dafne Keen was also great. She has a brooding stare which is easily the match of Jackman's.

However, the movie is utterly predictable, wasting a perfect opportunity to do something above and beyond that was afforded it by  the success of Deadpool, probably the only super hero movie Fox has nailed since X-Men 2 in 2003. That said, considering that Jackman is not returning to the claws again after this movie (unless Ryan Reynolds does somehow convince Jackman to do that Deadpool/Wolverine team-up movie), Logan is a good send off. Good enough, at any rate.

But it could it have been better if only Marvel had done it, which is the thought I have after every one of the X-Men movies since the advent of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with Iron Man back in 2008. Sony wised up and went to Marvel to get Spider-Man on the right track; maybe there's hope that Fox will do the same.

Apocalypse: An Exercise in Bloat (a movie review post)

With each new X-Men Universe offering from Fox, I find myself more and more longing for the day when Marvel will refuse to renew the license to Fox and re-make the X-Men in the same style as they've done with the Marvel Universe movies from their own production company (the only recent exception being Deadpool). It seems that big studios cannot wrap their collective heads around the concept of building up the world, first, before deluging it with characters and blowing it up (yes, I'm looking at you, too, Warner Brothers). I mean, seriously, it doesn't have to be world-threatening every time.

This one, in particular, got off to a bad start with me. We open some 5000 years ago in Egypt during a ceremony in which En Sabah Nur, later to be known as Apocalypse, is transferring his consciousness into a new host so that he can take the man's mutant power. The ceremony is being held inside a great pyramid. A pyramid which has been built with a... Look, I'm having trouble even saying this, but it's been built with a self destruct mechanism. One of the great pyramids in Egypt with a, yes, self-destruct device. Seriously.

Then, when it's activated, not only does the pyramid collapse in on itself... The solid stone pyramid collapses in on itself. What? Anyway... Once it had done that, it proceeds to collapse right on down into the ground, becoming completely submerged and blocking it from the sun.

There is none of that that makes any actual sense. Sure, you go right ahead and try to win yourself a No Prize by coming up with an explanation that works, but there is none of it that will actually make any rational sense, especially the part where the pyramid is swallowed by the earth.

We're less than 10 minutes into the movie at that point (okay, maybe 15), and I'm already struggling.

The next major issue with the movie is characters. There are too many and too many of them with no introduction. There's been demand since the X-Movies started for everyone's favorite character, whomever that may be, but Fox has gotten into the habit of just tossing them in without bothering to tell the audience who they are, basically relying on audience knowledge. This is fine under two conditions:
1. The character takes no part in the story, as with Jubilee in Apocalypse. Or any of the background students at Xavier's school.
2. The audience is only made up of fans of the comics who already know all of the background information they need to have.
It's alienating to non-comics fans when there are a bunch of characters running around without any information provided as to whom they are.

That's one of the things Marvel Studios has done exceedingly well, especially since many of their movies have dealt with little-known characters outside of the world of comics fans and conventions, is to introduce characters in a plausible and meaningful way. Even with Spider-Man, probably the character with the least information given about him within the context of a movie, in Captain America: Civil War, there was an appropriate amount of background given to give the character context for the movie.

Fox failed to do that with pretty much every character they brought into Apocalypse, including characters who have previously been in X-Men movies. The introductions of Nightcrawler and Angel were flimsy at best. Storm, given the fact that they've never really revealed any of her background prior, was hardly better. And Caliban and Psylocke were abysmal. And, I have to say, Psylocke psi-blade is not a lightsaber; it's a psychic knife that doesn't have any physical manifestation. (Unless they changed that sometime since I quit reading comics?)

The story is plenty bloated, too. The whole capture by Stryker is completely superfluous to the actual story and is only there so that they can work Wolverine into the movie in a completely gratuitous killfest. That was at least half an hour of the movie that could have been used to further the elements of the actual story. Or cut out completely.

The Magneto plot line is also -- I don't know what to call it -- unnecessary. It provides the only moment of the film with any real emotional content, but, considering where things are left at the end of Days of Future Past, it felt contrived. That would be because it was.

All of that said, it might sound like I didn't like the movie, which is not precisely true. I didn't like it, but I also didn't not like it. It wasn't horrible; it just wasn't all that good. Still, I'd watch it again before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice any day of the week.

I'm not a fan of the whole re-booting thing, but the X-Men is a franchise that needs to be re-booted and, this time, it needs to start with a plan, lay a foundation, and grow from there. It's too big a universe to keep throwing pieces of it in without laying the groundwork for them.

Deadpool (a movie review post)

I remember when Deadpool made his first appearance way back in New Mutants #98. I have the issue. Multiple times. However, I was unimpressed. He wasn't the big deal in that issue, anyway, not at the time. That was a character named Domino. Yeah, I know; you've never heard of her. I bet Deadpool has completely forgotten her and wouldn't even recognize her if they passed on the street. She'd be all, "Wade! Wade! It's me, Domino!" And he'd stare blankly through his mask and say something like, "Get off me, Spade-face." Back then, though, he was barely a Spider-Man ripoff and was contained completely within all four walls.

I was mostly out of comics by the time Wade had busted down that wall, so I never really got into the character. I knew enough, though, to be really pissed about the Wolverine movie and what they did to Deadpool in it, whether I liked him or not. Also, they had so perfectly cast Ryan Reynolds in the role and, then, basically, told him to bend over. Kind of like how Wade took that one bullet in this movie.

But, as Deadpool does, he, and Reynolds, came out on top in the end. Actually, I'm not sure if Ryan Reynolds isn't actually Deadpool. Or, what is even more likely (because, really, did Reynolds really exist before 1991?), when Deadpool broke that fourth wall in the comics, he emerged as Ryan Reynolds and has been trying to get to do the movie version of himself ever since. All of which is to say (again) that Reynolds is the perfect choice for Deadpool.

The movie is brilliant as soon as the film begins to roll, having the most creative and hilarious opening credits I've ever seen in a movie (something I'm sure you'll see repeated in many of the reviews). And it's not just the credits, it's also the visual that goes along with them. Though it's mostly the credits. I want to see the movie again just so I can see the credits again. Well, and then the rest of the movie, too, but the opening credits are enough to warrant a repeat viewing.

The rest of the cast is nearly as inspired as Reynolds. Okay, well, that's not true, because such perfect casting is extremely rare (and mostly reserved for Marvel comic book characters at this point), and no one else is as vital or as perfect as Reynolds is in this movie. However, Morena Baccarin had great chemistry with Reynolds, and it's hard to imagine inserting someone else into the role of Vanessa. Likewise with T. J. Miller and Gina Carano (even if she doesn't talk much). Oh, and Stefan Kapicic (even though all he does is talk since he's the credited CGI guy).

Okay, sure, the movie is super violent (sometimes in a Looney Tunes kind of way), super vulgar, and full of enough f-bombs to use in the warhead of a nuke, so I understand that some people could be super offended by the movie. But it's also full of humor (not just crude) and a lot of heart, and it's the heart that carries the movie, not the R-rated material. And, yeah, sure, the movie does poke some fun at the super hero movie industrial complex (like the studio not being willing to pay for more than two X-Men to appear in the movie), but it's fairly clever and a lot of fun to watch. As long as you're not being offended. Or squeezing your eyes shut at the violence.

But should you see the movie? Well, that's hard to say. I want to just say, "Yes! What are you kidding me? See the movie!" But, then, there are those people who will be offended, and those people should just stay away. There are also people who don't like super hero movies, but I think some of those people would enjoy this movie for no other reason than how irreverent it is, so that can't really be a gauge. Basically, you should do your research. Watch the trailers. All the trailers. If you find yourself giggling, you should probably give the movie a try.

Oh, and do stay till the end. Don't worry that it's over. Don't go home.

You Know You've Made It When... (part 2)

Sometimes it's good to ask questions. My last post on Lego minifigures inspired a friend of mine to go into research mode and look for figures that I may have missed, and he came up with some. It made me feel a little inadequate, actually, because I didn't even think to check for most of these guys.

First, though, the fails. The Lego fails, that is. Here are some ones that at least one of us checked only to find out that a very obvious character has never been made into a minifigure.
1. Sallah:

Despite being in half of the Indiana Jones movies, Sallah was never made as a minifigure. John Rhys-Davies does appear as this minifig, though:

Rhys-Davies did do the voice for this one, so I guess he can get partial credit for it:

2. Jane Foster:

Despite having more than a dozen Avengers related Lego sets, Jane does not appear as a minifigure.

Natalie Portman does appear as this figure, though:

3. Galadriel:

Explain to me how, exactly, Galadriel

does not get made into a minifigure while

Irina Spalko gets a figure in three different sets (while Sallah has none!). If I was Cate Blanchett, I'd feel robbed.

Also, a retraction. As I was working up this post, I realized that I was in error about Chris Evans.

The Fantastic Four have not, yet, been made into physical minifigures, although I could have sworn they had some sort of Lego set out several years ago with their flying car. When the FF re-boots, soon, it will no longer be Evans as the Torch, so it still won't count for him. He got robbed, too!

But there are a few new editions to the list of actors made into two different minifigure characters!

1. Ryan Renolds

2. Ben Kingsley

(Again, really? Nizam from Prince of Persia gets a figure but Galadriel doesn't?)

3. Alfred Molina

Another Prince of Persia figure on the list? Seriously? And he gets one from Raiders of the Lost Ark, too!

Which brings me back to my question of how the heck does Sallah not have a figure? Satipo, here, dies in the opening sequence of Raiders, but Sallah doesn't get one? I smell a conspiracy! Or a rat! Or Denmark!

But that's not all! Because there's also

Which gives Molina three different characters in three separate movies which may just make him the greatest actor of all time! Except, then, there's

4. Warwick Davis. Davis has been four different characters in two different movie franchises, though two of the movies from one of the franchises were 15 years apart. Who's greater, Davis or Molina? I guess you will have to decide. Here are Davis' figures:

5. Gary Oldman! And, really, how could I forget him the first time? I feel so bad. I love Gary Oldman! And he was by far the best thing about the Nolan Batman movies.

And he's also

Well, there you have it. The best actors who have ever lived. Or something like that. If I ever get a movie made out of any of my books, I'm going to make sure I'm some side character, some vital side character, so that if they ever get Lego sets, I will get to be a minifigure, too! Now that's the DREAM, folks!