THE ADDENDUM TO END ALL ADDENDUMS

Watchmen is easily one of the most influential comics to ever be published. This is a fact that cannot be disputed even by the staunchest of critics of the comics. One of the things that made it great were the addendums at the end of each chapter to flesh out the characters of this fictional Earth and their society's problems. It was also one of the reasons why many speculated it would be impossible to make it into a movie.

Well, here we are two months after the motion picture's release without any of the addendums included and many, myself included, thought it was spectacular.

However, many diehards of the franchise were furious that Zack Snyder couldn't find a way to fit in several of the addendums and many newcomers to the series couldn't understand every facet of the Watchmen reality without them.

In response to their fans and in a stroke of money-making genius, DC has released an animated feature of Tales of the Black Freighter with the DVD including a live-action feature representing the Under the Hood addendum.

This DVD addendum to the movie (that started as addendums to the novel) is a near-perfect representation of these stories within the story.

The first story, Tales of the Black Freighter, is the response to the comic's quandary: "If there are superheroes in real-life for these people, what would their comics be like?" Not a common thought when developing a plot, but that's part of the beauty of Watchmen. The answer to this question was pirates and the supernatural (ghouls, demons, etc.) would populate the pages of these fictional rags. Tales of the Black Freighter is a mirror for the story of Watchmen as it shows in a microcosm that sometimes the best of intentions don't always have the best of results and that sometimes one's focus on the worst aspects of life can blind them from everything good in the world.

The Black Freighter is a ship of ghoulish pirates who have committed so many heinous acts over their lifetimes that their souls are cursed to sail the seven seas on hell's personal sea vessel in search of more damned souls to hoist her rotten masts. A testament to just how hard it is to find good help these days.

The particular tale in Watchmen that we see is how the Black Freighter attacks and ransacks another pirate ship, and how all the crew is slaughtered except the captain. The captain washes up on a desolate shore with the carcasses of his crew and the sole intention of seeing his family again. He also fears that the Black Freighter will sail towards his home and the very threat of his family being in danger is enough to keep his resolve strong.

In desperation, he strings up the carcasses of his crew into a makeshift raft and sets off in the hopes of reaching his family before the Black Freighter. Alone, hungry, and left to drink seawater, he begins to go mad, talking to his slaughtered friends' dead bodies. Disgusting sights begin to drive him further into madness as gases trapped in his crews bodies begins to make them explode and leave a trail of blood in their wake that attracts the seas' most feared predator: the Great White Shark.

With pieces of sharpened parts of his makeshift raft, he stabs one of the sharks in the eye and jams the staff deep into the cranium of the shark, killing it, adding it to his raft of death and scaring off the remaining sharks.

After nearly losing all hope and preparing to succumb to the sea, the raft finds shore. Convinced that the Black Freighter has reached here before him, the captain believes with every fiber of his being that all the shapes draped by shadows by the night sky are actually pirates laughing at his futile efforts.

He skulks through the town, approaching his home, the longing to see his family all that is keeping him going. The night continues to play tricks on him as he beats to death what he believes to be a sentry positioned at his home, only to come to his senses after his daughters' shrill screams piece the night air and to realize he just beat his own wife to death. In his panic, he runs back to the sea where he sees the Black Freighter waiting for him, ready to finally claim its next soul.

The captain was so blind to his hate of the Freighter and that it would hurt his family, that in the end, the captain was the only one to do the harm as he condemns himself to an eternity of sailing the seven seas as a member of the Black Freighter's crew with one misguided act.

The animated version of this on the DVD perfectly depicted the gruesome fates of the captain and his crew from the original story and Gerard Butler (300) played the voice of the narrator/captain very well, but I couldn't help but want to hear him yell "THIS IS SPARTA!" or more appropriately "THIS IS THE BLACK FREIGHTER!" the entire time.

The other story is much simpler. Under the Hood is an autobiographical story revolving around the original Nite Owl and his driving motivations showing why he put on a mask and fought with the Minutemen. Not as deep a part of the universe's main plot, yet still critical nonetheless because it retells almost the entire back-story to the Watchmen's world and sets the stage for the events taking place in the novel itself.

DC knew that an autobiography with no pictures clearly wouldn't work on a DVD though. In order to counteract this problem, Under the Hood was turned into a magazine news program episode. Similar to 60 Minutes, The Culpeper Minute gets all the minor and past characters of Watchmen to come out and tell their story as if a Mike-Wallace-type was interviewing them.

All the actors who took the extra time to make this half hour mini-feature were great and showed how in-depth they got into their characters while explaining a lot of the key details that the main feature movie had to bypass to keep it less than three hours.

This supplemental DVD for the movie Watchmen is really high in quality and succeeds in filling in several of the gaps from the main feature's plot, but considering both mini-features combined barely mark an hour, it is tough to say this is worth $20 (even with the sneak peak at this summer's animated Green Lantern feature included).

Unless you are a die-hard fan of the Watchmen, then you can probably pass on this DVD and wait till it is included with the Director's Cut Special Edition of the Watchmen DVD for a much smaller price. Rumor has it that these features will be worked in at key parts of the movie's story just like in the book, which would make the Director's Cut a much smarter buy for the die-hard fan than this DVD if they can wait a couple more months.

Good quality for poor quantity at an even worse price makes the Tales of the Black Freighter DVD only worth 2 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

THE RETURN OF KING TUT?!

I usually like to use my column here as a chance to inform people and maybe entertain at the same time. I usually like to use my column as a force of good. I also usually don't have the clarity of mind when driven to such a rage by bonehead maneuvers by the powers-that-be to properly channel it into a semi-coherent comic book rant. This article goes against that norm, though.

The powers-that-be in this case happens to be DC Comics, which also happened to be the subject of my last semi-coherent comic book rant after they killed off Batman.

Even with the death of the Dark Knight well behind us and being about one-third of the way through the "Battle for the Cowl" story arc, DC still has several titles that deal with the Dark Knight by using the spin that these are simply excerpts from Batman's greatest case files (after all, Batman kept meticulous records). These titles are the Batman/Superman crossover and Batman: Confidential.

For the most part, I've enjoyed these titles as you see interesting spins on Batman's first team-up with Superman against Lex Luthor or a different take on the Joker's origin story. However, recently I've been noticing a trend becoming quite clear after the events of the recent 3-issue story arc in Batman: Confidential.

This trend is the integration of long-forgotten villains or villains introduced through non-comic book media into the comic canon.

The most recent example is the villain King Tut. For those who are not familiar with the many forms of Batman in the media through the years, King Tut is a villain who never appeared in the comics, but was a fabricated villain for Adam West's 1966 Batman series. Victor Goodman was an archeologist obsessed with the legends of King Tut. While moving part of his King Tut exhibit into the Gotham Museum of History, an Egyptian urn was dropped on his head and when he awakened, he imagined himself as the ancient Egyptian ruler (As was the motif for the show, the villain was always played by a celebrated actor or actress; in this case, the split personality archeologist Victor Goodman was played by Victor Buono). WHAM!

The obviously bad idea that, 43 years after King Tut's appearance in the campy TV show, the brass at DC felt it was a good idea to bring this character into the comic storyline is a clear sign of desperation in terms of writing. It symbolizes a lack of confidence in their planned re-launch (when they bring the Dark Knight back sometime within the next six months) that they are adding campy 60s villains to one of the most celebrated rouges' galleries in comics. ZZZAP!

The next thing you know, we'll be seeing Vincent Price's "Egghead" character (a man with an egg-shaped head, pale complexion, and an obsession with poultry embryos) or Roddy McDowell's "Bookworm" (a really ticked-off librarian and a Riddler knockoff) with his "Book-Mobile" causing Batman and Robin about as much difficulty as they did in the 60s (also, both never in the comics). BONK!

"What about characters that did appear in the comics and the TV show?" you ask. What? Like False-Face (master of disguise character), who only made one appearance in the comics (Batman #113, February, 1958; a bad year of villainy for the Dark Knight as it was also the year Calendar Man made his infamous debut) before people said he was nothing more than a toned-down Clayface? (False-Face would be re-imagined again when the animated series Batman Beyond used him as an international spy, but he failed there, too) He was used in the TV show only because he was a jewel-thief and not a murderer which played better for 1966's primetime audiences and his costumes were easier to construct using the technology for the time (he was played by Malachi Thorne of Star Trek fame and nearly sued the producers of Batman for refusing to put his name in the credits in order to sell the illusion that False-Face could be ANYONE; in the end they settled on his name appearing in the end credits of the last part of his two-part arc). BAM!

If Louie the Lilac (played by Milton Berle, a gangster obsessed with lilacs and the color purple; basically a cheap Joker knock-off because Berle refused to wear any heavy make-up for a different character) makes an appearance, I may have to swear off Batman comics like I did with Spider-Man after his most recent re-launch. OOF!

To prove my point, with the "Battle for the Cowl" re-launch effort underway, old one-shot villains are re-emerging for no reason whatsoever. Jane Doe, Adam Bomb, Anarchy...do any of these names ring a bell? No? Of course not! They are being dragged out of obscurity and into the limelight for no reason except for DC to show you how much they've screwed up over the past 70 years and that maybe you can hope they'll just kill them off in one fell swoop and promise to do better in the next 70. KER-SPLASH!

And let's not forget Composite Superman who only appeared in a two-part arc in June and July of 1964 before his recent return in Batman/Superman a couple of months ago (basically a Bizarro rip-off that is one-half Batman and one-half Superman). One of the worst concepts ever, but DC brought him back for a one-shot story. THWOCK!

I love the history of comics. I love where comics have come from to where they are today. I understand why the characters in the 60s, no matter what the medium, no matter the level of success or failure, are important. That is why I am so furious that it seems that DC feels the need to try to re-justify a time period long since past by re-introducing these characters and re-working them for modern audiences into a canon they no longer fit into. POW!

The Joker has lasted 70 years for a reason. Clayface wasn't an original villain, but he has proved to be one of the most popular even 50 years later. There are reasons why some characters fail and some succeed and these reasons usually translate over time so there is no reason to believe that a character that failed in the 50s and 60s will translate to today even with some re-tooling. When DC makes major plot decisions like this, all I see is the tarnishing of my memories of the 1960s Batman and the watering down of modern Batman stories. It is unnecessary and, as tacky and campy as the 1960s Batman was, moves like these are even more so.

-Ray Carsillo

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?

Mine isn't the most original title, but when talking about DC's Watchmen, no other title fits. What many experts considered impossible to bring to the big screen, visionary director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 300) grabbed by the horns and wrestled into a masterpiece worthy of the novel. To describe this as anything less than a labor of love would take away from the awe-inspiring brilliance ripped straight from one of TIME Magazines 100 Best Novels of All-Time.

The story is simple. Imagine an alternate universe America circa 1985. Superheroes have been outlawed for almost a decade, after a half century of service to their nation and to the world, due to a public outcry from events perpetrated in Vietnam. One of those now retired former heroes, the very definition of an anti-hero named the Comedian, is brutally murdered in his penthouse apartment and a set of events is set in motion that will bring some of the world's best and brightest heroes together to unearth one of the most shocking conspiracies ever concocted.

Many felt this movie would be impossible to make because you would not be able to include a lot of the writing devices used in the novel and still keep it under three hours. The first and possibly greatest difficulty in bringing Watchmen to the big screen would be being able to still develop the amazingly complex main characters to their full effect without the ancillary characters and chapter addendum devices used throughout the novel.

The novel gave convoluted psychological profiles from everyone from the man selling newspapers on the corner to Dr. Manhattan's former lover to the prison psychologist that has to analyze Rorschach when he gets taken into custody to help flesh out major plot points and character flaws in the heroes. The novel also had special addendums at the end of each chapter like excerpts from novels within the novel, shipping manuscripts, and other items that only make sense in the novel's thrilling conclusion. So would the movie still be able to portray the main characters' full spectrum of personality without these additional materials that could never be included in the movie?

The short answer is yes. The movie develops the main characters just as deeply as in the novel and compensates by keeping most major points from the original story and adding a handful of subtle moments to make up for the lack of these additional writing devices. This, along with some spectacular acting that made it feel like the characters had jumped right off the page, did pure justice to the characters of Watchmen.

Another problem that arose from the lack of extra writing devices was that without the ancillary characters and chapter addendums, the original story's ending would not make sense. Even though Zack Snyder did his best to be as true to the original novel as possible, several major plot points had to be tweaked or removed in order to make more sense and appeal to a larger audience, especially the ending. Some would argue that the movie's ending might have been better than the novel's because it more directly related to the main characters, but that is clearly up for debate. Still, for the most part, the movie of Watchmen is ripped straight from the novel's pages and it feels like the comic had come to life.

Another amazing aspect of the movie was the artistic style. From the perfectly emulated streets of the run-down 1985 New York City in the novel, to the colorful costumes and devices used by the characters, to the music choices made through many of the scenes from Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' to Jimi Hendrix's rendition of All Along the Watchtower. Every visual and audio choice made by Snyder fit perfectly with the style of the novel and the music added so much more to the scenes than you could've hoped for.

There are only a couple of major critiques to this movie. I'm all for sex and violence in movies, but one major hang-up, especially amongst die-hard purists of the novel, is that Zack Snyder likes to step up the sensationalism in most of his movies and some of the gore and sex scenes were so amped up by Snyder's style that you felt some of the movie could have been at NC-17 levels. I know that Dr. Manhattan was naked most of the time in the novel, but it is a little different when you see a blue-man group reject naked on the big screen for almost three hours. Combine that with 10-minute long sex scenes and people being torn to shreds when they aren't having relations; it was all just too unnecessary.

Another major critique was that if you did not read the novel, you might not have understood or been able to follow as clearly everything that was going on. The plot is very complicated and even with the movie timing out at 2 hours and 43 minutes there are still some things you wish they could have expanded on to help the general audience. For example, if you did not read the novel, you'll have no clue as to why Ozymandias has a blue tiger as his pet in his Antarctic fortress. Without being explained in the movie, I could see how something like a blue tiger could bother people. I guess we'll just have to grab the 3 hour and 10 minute Director's cut when it comes out on DVD. Oh, those tricky marketing and merchandising departments.

In the end, this is not a movie that you can just check your brain at the door. If you have not read the novel (highly recommended before seeing the movie) and miss a moment here and there, you could very likely not understand some of the major plot points. So, be prepared if you're going to the theatre. Be sure to go to the bathroom, get your snacks beforehand, and get comfortable because if you miss any of the near three hours, the entire experience will likely be markedly worse. For this reason, along with the clearly unnecessary gore and sex, I have to dock my score some.

Watchmen gets 3.5 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

A WONDER TO BEHOLD

The first night of the NY ComicCon held one of the most anticipated events of the entire convention. The IGN theatre was filled to the rafters before a special complete viewing of the highly anticipated Wonder Woman full-length animated, straight to DVD, feature coming out March 3rd, 2009, three days before the Watchmen premieres in theatres (DC drilled that into our heads during the Lauren Montgomery/Bruce Timm/Michael Jelenic panel after the movie).

DC's animation department has been churning out these full-length features for years now, and they have always pushed themselves to the limits in terms of story telling and doing justice to the characters (except for Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, I've tried for years to delete that from my memory banks). It's a credit to Producer Bruce Timm and Casting Director Andrea Romano who have been a part of almost all of them. Bruce and Andrea were also in the original brain trust that started the animation revolution in the early 1990s with Batman: The Animated Series and continued their relationship with DC with this project and it shows in another above and beyond effort.

This was a huge undertaking since it marks the first time in 30 years that any media form has devoted a sole project to the Amazonian Princess and DC pulled out all the stops in terms of talent: Keri Russell as Wonder Woman, Alfred Molina as Ares, Oliver Platt as Hades, Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor, Rosario Dawson as Artemis, and Virginia Madsen as Hippolyta. And, of course, it wouldn't be a DC animation project without a little pro voice over talent, perfectly cast again by Andrea Romano, with Tara Strong (Raven in Teen Titans, Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series) as Alexa and John DiMaggio (Bender in Futurama, Marcus Fenix in Gears of War 1 and 2) as Deimos. Director Lauren Montgomery is a veteran in the animation game, but this was her first full-length feature where she was the sole director and she did a great job with such a huge undertaking. Add in veteran cartoon writer Michael Jelenic for the script and the pieces were in place for what could be one of DC's best cartoon features to date.

Here's the basic premise for those of you unfamiliar with Wonder Woman's background. Taken with some liberties from Greek mythology, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, wages war against Ares, the god of war, in an attempt to save humanity from itself. After besting Ares in battle, Hippolyta wishes to do away with Ares, but is prevented by Zeus, the father of Ares and king of the gods. Hera, queen of the gods, and patron to Hippolyta, bargains to imprison Ares for all time on the Amazon's island in the Aegean Sea and Hera would be given a child from the gods for her trouble. So Hippolyta locks Ares away and makes a child out of mud and clay that is blessed by the gods in the form of a daughter, whom Hippolyta names Diana.

Centuries later, the Amazons, who still look smoking hot because they are descended from gods and do not age like humans, are living in tranquility on their island, hidden from man's eyes by a magic mirror by Hephaestus (Greek god of the forge) when an American fighter jet gets shot down and crashes into the invisible island. Upon landing in what he thinks is heaven (who can blame him), American pilot Steve Trevor is captured and learns that the Amazons' culture involves the hatred of man and that he must be sent back to America with an emissary from the Amazons' island. Diana, dying to explore the world, rigs the selection process so that she may be the emissary. At the same time, the Amazons are betrayed by one of their own and Ares is set free so Diana's mission becomes two-fold, to re-capture Ares as well as escort Steve Trevor home.

This was a great watch. The only real snag I hit with this project was that it still never explained where the heck she got her invisible jet! Everything else was given a detailed, ornate history from her bulletproof bracelets to her Lasso of Truth. The jet though just sort of appeared as if an invisible jet was common place. Then, to add insult to injury, it seemed like too many people could see the invisible jet so it really wasn't that invisible, was it? My theory is that the Amazons reverse engineered the jet that Steve Trevor crashed in and made their own improvements to it, but it still wasn't explained outright. Cursed comic book speculation!

Overall, the story is relatively accurate to the comics, with a few liberties taken on the Greek mythos, but it was still done in an enjoyable and meaningful manner that does justice to the original stories from the 1940s. The voice acting was great, the story held your attention the entire way through, and it timed out nicely at nearly an hour and a half. It also answered every question (almost; damn invisible jet) that you might have about Wonder Woman if you weren't a diehard and not too familiar with the character.

The Wonder Woman animated feature gets 4 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

Messiah Complex: X-Men 207

Hi Readers,

I recently bought another Trade Paperback which was X-Men Messiah Complex. It set me back 30 bucks, which I thought was a bit pricey, but I was dying to get this. One of the issues that stood out to me was X-men #207 mostly because of Bachalo's incredible art!

While reading, a couple of questions crossed my mind. Now that Rogue has been wiped clean of all of her past absorptions, does she still have Ms Marvel's and Sunfire's powers? I would assume that she does not, but within the story, Rogue leaves without explaining that she does or doesn't. Also, in the story, Pixie stabs Malice(the Omega Sentinel) in the torso with her soul dagger, but what exactly does that do? Magik's soul sword and Pixie's soul dagger are a complete mystery to me. Do these weapons hurt people physically? Mentally? Spiritually?

The Good: Like I stated before, Bachalo's art is incredible! His illustrating style is fantastic and cartoonish, but can also be savage and brutal. I was excited to see that Sunfire (from the regular 616 reality) had adopted the costume of his Age of Apocalypse counterpart. I'm pretty sure that readers everywhere were happy to see the change. It was also beautifully gorey for Dust to eviscerate Exodus's insides while he battled Emma Frost. Not only was this action unexpected of an X-Man, but it could not have happened to a nicer guy! I loved the fact that this issue was a free-for-all fight between the X-Men, new X-Men, Marauders, Predator X and Cable. The chaos let readers know that anything could happen and many characters were going to be hurt from this fight.

The Bad: Even though I liked the big battle between all of these opposing forces, I thought it was a bad move for all of these mutants to be so incredibly careless during the fight with each other's lives. Their species is on the edge of extinction and everyone is trying to kill each other. I understand that these are trying times for both sides of this fight, but I figured that with extinction on the horizon, each team would have kept that fact in mind instead of attempting to kill each other. Another aspect that I did not care for, was Bishop loosing his arm in the fight with Predator X. It didn't seem to serve a purpose and this particular injury makes him too "Cable-esque" since he has to now wear a mechanical arm. Now both Cable and Bishop are two mutant time-traveling, metal armed, big muscled mutants with opposite objectives. Bishop should be his own character! What's next, is Cyclops going to sprout claws from his knuckles and start calling people bub? You see my point?

Overall this was a great comic book within a great story line. Let me know what you think also!

@~~~~~~~~}~~~~~~~ Devin Peacock

RAY SMASH PUNY MOVIES!

Its efforts like this from Marvel that have almost made me "Hulk-out" on many an occasion. I will give them some credit; their timing is impeccable. A few months after the release of the solid Incredible Hulk remake with Edward Norton on DVD, days before the New York Comic Con, and only a couple of months before Wolverine: Origins hits theatres, Marvel Studios drops this little wannabe gem on us called Hulk VS.

"Versus who?" you ask. Well, who do you want to see fight the Hulk? This is after all the question that the folks at Marvel seemed to ask themselves since this effort is just a huge piece of fan fiction to drive the fan-boys into frenzied fits at comic-conventions.

Hulk VS. is a straight to DVD release that contains not one, but TWO "movies". I have to put those magical punctuations around the word "movies" with this because something that can be strung across a pair of Saturday morning cartoon episodes should not be considered an actual movie. To try to make this geek-gasm on a disc worth your money, Marvel paired two separate Hulk adventures onto this DVD and even then it times out to only 82 minutes.

First, we see the not-so-jolly green giant take on the man who is "the best at what he does, and what he does isn't very nice". A pre-X-MEN Wolverine has been tasked by his Department H headmasters to locate and subdue a monster who is wreaking havoc in the Canadian countryside. Dept. H is a fictional spin on Canada's CSIS, by the way. Fictional, of course, because who expects Canada to have any REAL intelligence agency? After picking up the scent, Wolverine begins to track the Hulk across the Canadian Rockies.

The action quickly picks up as Wolverine finds a quivering Bruce Banner in the woods and he wants to know why there is a half-naked man in freezing temperatures out in the middle of nowhere. Wolverine's subsequent threats get under Banner's skin, transforming Banner into his worse half and the highlight of the "movie" ensues with a defining battle taking place with moments from all the Hulk vs. Wolverine battles that have happened over the past 30 years, again catering to the fan-boys. Before it can end, Sabertooth, Lady Deathstrike, Deadpool, and Omega Red appear out of nowhere. We then see a montage of Wolverine's origin story, which is not explained so if you are unfamiliar with the character, you end up lost, confused, and frustrated because I thought the Hulk was supposed to be the main character here and we just had every major bad guy and moment from Wolverine's history thrown into a five minute montage. The story then continues in a Wolverine and Hulk TEAM-UP against the Weapon X rejects. After they are defeated, the Hulk and Wolverine go back to fighting each other, for no apparent reason, and the credits start to roll on a freeze frame a la Rocky vs. Apollo Creed like they were two friends sparring in some eternal duel.

This first DVD is a complete and utter disappointment. The things that made me furious as a comics fan far outweigh the handful of positives in this. When all the special features vignettes outlast the actual "movie" by almost 20 minutes each, you know you got off on the wrong foot.

The only positives were that the animation style kept in line with the popular Japanese style that many American animation studios have adapted in recent history (starting in 1992 with Batman: The Animated Series and continuing through most major superhero cartoons up to this point) and living up to those standards, they tried to make it play like a comic story arc, and the introduction of Deadpool to animation.

The negatives include the horrible character development, the fact that the name of the title is Hulk vs. Wolverine and it ended up being Hulk and Wolverine vs. Weapon X, the horrible animation model for Sabertooth, who looked nearly the same size as Wolverine, the fact that the entire movie could have been done over the course of a Saturday morning special, and you just have a frustrating, disjointed viewing experience as if you were reading a comic story arc, but missed several issues. If you are a diehard comics fan then you will probably be able to sit through it because you already know the back stories and will recognize the many, many references the "movie" makes to the comics, but if you are a casual fan, this would not be for you. Add in a few typical behind the scenes vignettes and special commentary packages and the special edition part of this disc is not very special at all.

The second piece in this two part Hulk-fest sees Mr. "You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry" against the mighty Thor, the Norse God of Thunder in the aptly titled: Hulk vs. Thor. This second "movie" was a lot better than the first. With a narrated opening montage that explains all you need to know about Asgard (realm of the Norse gods) and the characters in play, the plot is revealed within the first five minutes and the rest is non-stop smashing. Loki, the Norse God of Mischief and Evil has separated Bruce Banner from the essence that is the Hulk and unleashed him on Asgard during its weakest hour.

Without Banner to keep the Hulk tethered to humanity, the Hulk rampages throughout Asgard, laying waste to all in his path and all that stands between Hulk and the complete destruction of Asgard is Thor. The Hulk, being the only thing that could compete with a god, handily smashes Thor. Loki is betrayed though by his minion, the nicely drawn Enchantress, who revives Thor because it seems she's got a crush on Mr. Goldilocks. She reveals what Loki has done and the rest of the movie is cut between Thor trying to reunite Banner with the Hulk and Hulk just laying waste to the rest of Asgard's army as he makes a beeline towards the temporarily incapacitated Odin (near omnipotent king of the gods) with Thor finally succeeding in the end.

This "movie" was much better in terms of establishing the plot and giving the heroes an objective. Still though, being only 45 minutes, again this could have been done over a pair of Saturday morning specials and we could have been done with it. Instead, Marvel wanted to show off the new blood special effects that they have for animation so they could get a PG-13 rating on a cartoon and therefore make it so they couldn't put it on network Saturday mornings and mass produce these ridiculously overpriced DVDs. Again, the special feature vignettes are just "How we produced 82 minutes of par animation and charged you $24.99 for it" and they last longer than the actual "movie".

I have to end on the note that I really hope they do better with future releases in the "VS." series Marvel is planning. On an individual basis, Hulk vs. Wolverine gets a 1 out of 5 and Hulk vs. Thor gets a 2 out of 5 to average it out to a whopping 1.5 out of 5. Unless you are a hardcore Marvel fan-boy, I would probably avoid these or rent them at most.

-Ray Carsillo

Dark Avengers Issue #1

Hi Readers,

Just like everyone, I was ecstatic to see that the "Secret Invasion" story arc was over... until I saw that it meant the beginning of "Dark Reign". I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOO over these story arcs that incorporate most of the Marvel Universe, but I did read "Dark Avengers" because Bendis and Deodato were the creative forces behind it.

The Good: Bendis does a great job of transferring the eeriness of the Thunderbolts to Dark Avengers. Both teams are comprised of anti-heroes and villains, but both books are bursting with comedy, shocking moments and bucketfuls of deception. This is combined with Deodato's art, which layers each page with shadows and smirks on each character's face.

Bendis also does a great job of showcasing each characters' personality traits such as Venom's savage cannibalism, Moonstone's ego, Daken's Oedipus complex, Sentry's phobia, etc. Another attractive quality of this issue was Osborn's explanation for his recruitment: he simply wanted to piss off certain heroes by hiring anti-heroes to impersonate them.

The Bad: I don't understand what Noh-Varr's doing with the others, he is a completely random choice as an Avenger. I read his profile on Marvel.com and read his scene a second time, but still could not find an understandable reason for him being apart of this roster.

I also hate the fact that Ares is a hired lackey in the Avengers. He's the God of Fucking War! How can someone who considers himself to be a god, be easily "purchased" by Stark, Osborn or whoever? As long as Ares has been an Avenger, I have yet to see him display any extraordinary talent or ability outside of being a sword-wielding curse-slinging brute. When Thor was an Avenger, it was because he respected his teammates and wanted to continue being a hero; same as Hercules (who is way cooler than Ares). Ares is an Avenger because he is paid to be and "there are battles to be fought" (quote from this issue). One word... LAME!

Overall, this was a great beginning issue for this new series and I can't wait to see the Dark Avengers "slip up" and expose their true identities.

@~~~~~~~~~}~~~~~~~ Devin Peacock