Marvel Movies: No Angry Comic Nerd Here

Recently, a friend asked me this amazing question: "When it comes to Marvel comics converted to movies, are you usually satisfied with it, unhappy with it, or both?"

Sit back and let me show you a whole new world (and why I'm totally fine with Marvel movies not being true to their comic book counter parts).

The Short version: Marvel's characters are always being re-created and re-imagined; their stories are constantly being retold.

The Long version:

Every single character and story created within Marvel Comics exists in the Marvel Universe (think Multiverse).

The Marvel Universe consists of parallel dimensions (I'm using 'dimensions' in place of universes because it makes more sense to me). In each dimension there is a Spider-Man, an Ironman, a Deadpool, and a DoNothingMan. Each dimension has it's own little twists. This allows for the Marvel writers and artists to infinitely create (or kill) and re-imagine characters.

You want a black Spider-Man? Then you want Miles Morales of Earth-1610 (Ultimate Marvel) a dimension where Peter Parker was killed. But don't worry, Peter Parker is still alive and well in Earth-616 (and many others).

A beautiful example of these dimensions is Deadpool Corps.

The Earth-616 Deadpool travels across the parallel dimensions to recruit a team of alternate versions of himself. He selects Lady Deadpool (Earth-3010), Kidpool (Earth-10330), Dogpool (Earth-103173), and Headpool (Earth-2149). After the team is put together, hilarity ensues.

At the bottom of the list are the movies.

Earth-199999 appears to contain Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers. Notice that The Hulk (movie) is not listed. That movie was so bad that Marvel kicked it out of the entire Marvel Universe. LOLz. Also notice the Guardians of the Galaxy in the announced section. This is the craziest team of super heroes ever. Even crazier than the Deadpool Corps.

So basically, Marvel created a storytelling ecosystem with infinite possibilities. It's how writers/directors/artists twist the characters and place them in new and different situations that makes the changes so interesting.

October In Full Force

It's been four weeks since Resident Evil 6 dropped and I still don't think I've played enough of it to adequately "review" it. Then again, I haven't played it that much. I blame the game itself. But I can also blame another game: Dead Space. Yes, the original Dead Space. This red-cased, greatest hits game is scarier than most of Resident Evil 4, all of Resident Evil 5, and what I've played of Resident Evil 6 combined.

Sneaking through the Ishimura a couple weekends ago was satisfying and creepy; to add extra tension, I'm going for the plasma cutter challenge and only using that weapon. At first I thought it was hard to shoot for the limbs and appendages (I'm a seasoned zombie killer, aiming for skulls) but I slowly got the hang of it. I'm also a fan of the Kinesis module; sharp objects and explosive canisters are launched at anything that moves. The most fun I've had in-game has involved creative killing with gas tanks and shrapnel.

Unfortunately, the Kinesis module isn't that original. I've encountered the mechanic before in Half-Life 2 and Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, but it's still fun to use. It's definitely a good thing that weapons like the gravity gun don't exist in real life, because I would cause all kinds of trouble armed with one.

Out in the real world, everything around the DoNothingMan is falling apart. I still can't get my twitter feed to display in the blog margins (this just suddenly started happening and I don't know to fix it) and last Thursday my van decided to stop running. Hopefully I can bring it back to life.

It's Turtle Time, Again

As a childhood fan of the late '80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon (and later the comics), I always pay attention to the goings on of the Turtles.

A couple weekends ago a new cartoon dropped on Nickelodeon. Being a little jaded because of the re-makes that seem to be popping up everywhere, I wasn't excited about the 2012 Nickelodeon Turtles. The 2003 re-make did get me excited about watching Saturday morning cartoons again, even though I was still in high school. That excitement quickly faded after the first season and I completely stopped watching sometime in the second season. But being a college student also had something to do with that.

Anyway, I realized while watching the 2003 Turtles that I like my heroes-in-a-half-shell goofy. At least while they're on TV. The one good thing that came out of the 2003 series was Turtles Forever. A crazy mash-up of all the TMNT universes, Turtles Forever brought the 1987 crew and 2003 crew together with the comic book crew. Twelve turtles. Count 'em. Twelve. The coolest part was seeing all the different art styles mesh together. But the 1987 Turtle Van is the best Turtle Van so far. I will argue that point to the death.

I haven't seen a Turtle Van in the 2012 series yet, but they have alluded to it. "That means we have a van!" says Michelangelo while he and his brothers are staking out a rooftop. And I laughed. I laughed a lot, actually. The two-part, first episode was funny. The same goes for the third episode, "Turtle Temper" that aired this past weekend. I don't think we're going to get Bebop and Rocksteady, but so far, the 2012 series is goofy. I actually watched the first, two-part episode with a good buddy and fellow Turtles fan on Saturday. We both had our gripes. But we both enjoyed the show.

Donatello is still my favorite of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; he is one of the reasons that I was (and still am) so interested in technology. I'm glad he's remaining nerdy and goofy in this newest installment. For now, I'll keep watching.