MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Morbius" (2022)

...yeah, yeah, I've seen the memes. I've contributed to the memes.

The memes don't make this movie good.

Because, trust me, this movie is not good. It's not good at all. It's absolutely atrocious on virtually every level.

Bad. Bad. Bad.

MadCap's Mad Rantings - "Avengers #20 and #MakeShulkyHotAgain"

...you fucked up, Jason Aaron. You fucked up hard.

Sorry for the immediate dropping into expletives, but this comic really did manage to piss me off quite a bit.

MadCap's Mad Rantings - "Doctor Strange #4" (2018)

Mark Waid's Doctor Strange #4!

Bad audio is had!

MadCap goes insane over two minor plot points (that aren't all that minor) that completely undercut the story Mark Waid is trying to tell!

By the Eye of Agamotto...this is some serious crap!

Doctor Strange is owned and published by Marvel Comics.

For the latest from MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Exiles #1" (2018)

Ooooh boy. Let's unpack this, shall we? Exiles was a series that basically was Sliders (several of the episodes of which I've reviewed on this very blog) meeting with superheroes. While not officially an X-Men book, it had several characters (and several variation of characters) from the X-Men side of the Marvel universe. There were others, of course, but for the most part it's an X-Men book that wasn't really an X-Men book. The original team comprised of Clarice Ferguson - aka Blink - from the Age of Apocalypse universe, a version of Mimic - aka Calvin Rankin - from another universe, Nocturne - the daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch from another universe, Thunderbird (aka John Proudstar) and Mr. Misguided Declaration of Heroism himself, Morph.

The first series ran for one hundred issues (absolutely unheard of in Marvel today) and is considered by many to be a classic that is unmatched across the multiverse...at least until Chris Claremont came in for the final leg of the story and turned it into the "Psylocke and all her friends" show.

And people say that Wolverine is a publicity hound.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Doctor Strange #3"

The last time we saw Stephen Strange, serious matters were afoot. While he tried to assuage the fears of young Zelma Stanton about the Mind Maggots had had rooted their way into her...the truth was something far worse. Not just for Zelma, but for the world entire - magic was seeing a very dangerous shift. A fairly common spell cast by Strange...produced no effect, almost as though that magic had simply stopped existing entirely. It was definitely troublesome, and Stephen sought to discern just what it was that had happened, unaware that the Sanctum was being visited by an allied force...who was then dragged back through the portal that he had come through by the insidious forces of the Empirikul, who were determined to destroy all magic.

I've mentioned in a few of my reviews since now that the first three issues of the run of a comic tend to set up the status quo for the run so that it can be shaken up by the events to come. I've also said that Doctor Strange didn't really need that, since the characters of Stephen and Wong were very firmly established within the mythos of the Marvel Universe. By this point, the movie hadn't come out yet, so I really couldn't make a crack about how the common man would know as well, but the point is that he was a known figure in-universe, so the first issue of this run really only served as a re-introduction to the character and his world. This was much the same with Issue #2 and continues into Issue #3.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #4"

Last time, Ben Reilly beat up a cosplayer. Also, other things happened, but that was really the main focus on Issue #3. Issue #4 has a cover...that technically lies. It's a pretty good cover, showing Ben Reilly and Kaine - Scarlet Spider vs. Scarlet Spider - seeming to fall from a building and down into Las Vegas as they come to blows. However, there is a slight problem with the image.

It doesn't actually appear in the comic. Sort of.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Doctor Strange #2"

So, pro-tip for those of you wanting to get into internet reviewing - never do almost an entire review of something before going back and finding out that you've already reviewed it. Because, yeah, that happened.

Still, at the very least, it gives me a good base to go off of. If you don't feel like clicking the above link, here's a quick recap of Issue #1. Zelma Stanton, a young woman who worked as a librarian and was "lol snarky" incarnate came to Doctor Strange for some assistance dealing with some magical maggots that had wormed their way into her brain. Then they got out. With Issue #2, we're going to pick up right where we left off - maggot apocalypse already in progress.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #3"

Last time on Dragonball Z...I mean, Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider...

Issue #2 saw Ben coming to grips with the reality of what he's done, doing some twistedly altruistic things, and be a snarky jackass. Issue #2 saw Kaine, on the other hand, running around fake torturing a woman for information about Ben, breaking into an office building in a way that would make John McClane weep with pride, and finding out what it's like to be on the receiving end of more dakka. Where will Issue #3 take us? Well, for starters, it takes us back to Ben Reilly's signature costume as the Scarlet Spider on the cover.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #2"

When we last left Ben Reilly, he had come to Las Vegas in order to hide from not only Peter Parker but also his "brother" Kaine, who was in pursuit of him (though Ben's not aware of that fact just yet). Hitting up an old contact from his brief stint as a super villain, Ben found himself in the office of Cassandra Mercury with a gun in his face. Issue number two picks up with the execution of Ben Reilly, already in progress. Unfortunately for Cassandra Mercury, she's just an average human and no bullet is any match for a prepared Spider family member with their Spider-Sense intact.

"Colt 45...semi-automatic...PLAY-DOH!"

After a bit of a stand-off, Ben gets some more information from Cassandra about her daughter, Abigail. Ben mentions she was suffering from Crooks' Disease, which would not yet be fatal. Cassandra admits that she is not, but she's in a coma that her doctor isn't expecting her to wake up from, so she might as well be dead. Ben asks to see her and is taken.

Kaine, meanwhile, is treating Ben's former associate Rita to a torturing...sorry, it's "enhanced interrogation" now, according to him. Through claiming that he's planning to waterboard her with scalding hot water rather than the usual cold, Kaine manages to intimidate her into revealing a clue to Ben's location - that he was planning to go to Broadway, but not the one in New York, as a flashback tells us. After getting her to reveal her password and her office floor at New U, Kaine reveals that it was just a bucket of dry ice and that he had no intention of actually harming her.

A far cry from the man who brutally murdered Otto Octavius back in the 90's.

...he got better, obviously, but that's neither here nor there.

Mock torturing people really IS an improvement for him.

Back in Vegas, after an awkward elevator ride, Ben is brought to little Abigail. She is, as Cassandra said, completely comatose. Ben comes up to her bedside, stunned into silence, and has a gun pulled on him by Cassandra....who relents the moment that she realizes that Abigail has woken up, asking for a glass of water. Slate and Ben head out into the hallway and end up in a tussle over what just happened Ben politely suggesting (with a gun in Slate's mouth for emphasis) that they just play nice and get along so as not to ruin Cassandra's happy moment.

Not long after, Ben bluffs his way into convincing Cassandra that not only did he cause Abigail to wake up via telepathy, but that he can cure her with some funding and time. As a condition of this, June ends up getting free room and board at the casino as well as all the quarters she can stomach.

Awww, Ben's feeding her gambling addiction!

Meanwhile, Kaine breaks into New U's offices and finds Rita's office. Trolling through the database, he uses the Broadway clue and finds records of Abigail's condition and surmises that Ben has gone there. While Kaine using the records technically makes sense, and he ultimately does deduce correctly, I went ahead and checked Wikipedia for places that are either named or related to Broadway. There are at least fifteen that have no relation to New York or Nevada. Regardless, he's right and is already making plans to go after Ben when two men in tactical gear burst into the office he's in...and open fire on him with some lovely automatic weapons, ending the issue.

The tone has definitely gotten a little more serious here. No comical hallucinations of the Scarlet Spider or the Jackal for Ben, we have Kaine threatening to waterboard a woman (even though he had no intention of doing so), and an almost gratuitous overuse of gun play. We are clearly far and away from the high flying adventures of Peter Parker, this series being a different animal entirely (not to say that Spidey can't be dark). We're starting to see a status quo develop - Ben working for Cassandra to develop a cure for Crooks' Disease, Aunt June living at the casino, Ben trying to become a hero, Kaine's efforts to stop him because he believes he's still a villain (and rightly so). We also get further development on Ben trying to get a grasp on a familiarity to his life as he gets Aunt June room and board at the casino...as well as endless quarters to feed her gambling addiction.

...two out of three ain't bad?

All the ingredients are here for something great, and we'll be getting into it next Saturday!

Face front, True Believers!

*record scratch* "Hi...that's me. You're probably wondering how I got here..."

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #2 comes to us from Marvel Comics.Written by Peter David, Penciled by Mark Bagley, Inked by John Dell, color artist'd by Jason Keith, and lettered by Joe Caramgna. They all did great!

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #1"

The more astute of my readers (and good luck figuring out, between the three of you, who I'm talking about) might have noticed that I am a fan of Spider-Man. I'm not a fan of pretty much anything that Marvel has done with Spider-Man (in the comics, anyway) since about 2007. Why? Because Spider-Man had his entire status quo altered by a very, very poor deus (or should I say devil) ex machima that should have been laughed out of the writer's room in concept, much less ever make it into print. Joe Quesada insists that his magnum opus One More Day is a story about love and sacrifice, when it is really a story about Peter Parker rejecting his own creed of "with great power comes great responsibility".

So yes, it was basically Secret Empire before Secret Empire ever existed. But One More Day at least had the decency to only be four issues long.

However, as you can tell from the title, my hatred of Joe Quesada and Nick Spencer (who both still have jobs and Nick Spencer is due to take over for Dan Slott in writing Spidey - oh joy!) isn't what we're here to talk about. We can save that for another day. No, we're here to talk about the Scarlet Spider!

...no, not that one, though I could see why you might think that. Kaine did have the last ongoing series under the name and he has been, for a few years now, the only active Scarlet Spider, but no. I'm here to talk about the original Scarlet Spider: Ben Muckfothering Reilly.

And yes, that is his legal name.

LootCrate Marvel Gear + Goods December 2017 - "Up The Rainbow Bridge!"

I may be Thor, but I'm not complaining.

Get yourself a LootCrate at lootcrate.com! They have a bunch of cool stuff and not just from Marvel! (*)

I'm not affiliated with LootCrate in any way, I just want to signal boost a cool product.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin. 

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Marvel Puzzle Quest"

Okay, let me be honest here. I hate match three games. I just do.  I have bad memories of playing Bejeweled as a child and never getting it quite right. seeing all those multicolored shapes sitting there, judging me, juking back into place with mocking laughter whenever I didn't actually managed to match three, telling me I was never good enough and that my old man left me when I was a child because I was a completely useless pile of human waste who would never amount to anythi-

...okay, I may have issues that don't actually relate to match three games themselves. In all honesty, I have no real appreciation for the genre.  Puzzle games have never really been my forte in the past. However, one of my dear friends (Cassie, for those of you who follow my Tales from Tabletop posts) told me that I would enjoy this game simply for the Marvel aesthetic, knowing full well what side my bread was buttered on in terms of comic book preferences.

And, give her credit, she was right.  I was suckered in by the Marvel aesthetic.

Marvel Entertainment, D3 Publisher, and Demiurge Studios have come together to make something that is visually very beautiful.  There are new renderings of various Marvel heroes, villains, and others done with careful artistic precision that appear on various screens. The various shapes that fill the grid from which three are matched are very colorful and vibrant and it is quite satisfying to match three (or more) and watch them explode off the screen to damage the enemy team.

Each character has three abilities, each one corresponding to a specific color. They can be used when a certain amount of that color is gained to have various effects on the playing field, such as setting up a timer for a specific event, inflicting damage on an opponent, or stunning an opponent or opponents.  And your rewards for completing the various stages? Any number of things from the all important ISO-8 that levels up your heroes and villains, hero points that allow you to buy new slots, other items to support your team like boosts to increase damage or your stockpiles of a certain color in battle, and new comic book covers to both unlock new abilities for characters you have as well as brand new ones.

Also, on rare occasions, you can also pick up Team Ups that can be used just like regular hero/villain/other abilities, though only for one time and only from points gathered from their own special tile that resembles ol' Shell-Head's Arc Reactor.

Then, of course, comes the joys of strategies and planning out.  Anyone who has read my reviews for a long while knows that I'm a man's man, a courageous man who isn't afraid to pick up a broadsword and go charging headlong at my enemies screaming "FREEDOM!" which admittedly does not leave much room for the strategic mind.  While some fights can be very easily taken care of with minimal effort, some do actually require workarounds such as the use of boosts and other power ups.

So, all this considered...it's also a mobile game.  And mobile games are, by their nature, addictive.  As I mentioned before, you have to buy new slots for heroes using either Hero Points or from cold hard cash. It is definitely possible to play through the game and never spend a dime...but you'd have a very long, hard slog of it, particular due to the fact that awarded covers will be destroyed if they are not recruited or used within several days (usually 13 from the date of award).

Which, again, is to facilitate the microtransactions. Which I'm not a fan of.

However, I will say this game is good and I admit that I really do like it. Despite the problems with some leveling in the competitive circuit (yes, there's multiplayer and no, I don't care for it) and the events (yes, they have events, there is actually a storyline in the game that's basically a run off of Dark Reign from the comics, not much to tell here since you can pretty much ignore it), I find it very enjoyable. It isn't something one can sit and play for extended periods, but it isn't supposed to be. It's a nice little jaunt to fill some time between cradle to grave.

Just...remember the dangers of mobile gaming.  And remember what happens when you stare to long into the abyss an-oh, look! Captain Marvel cover! Woooooo!!!

Marvel Puzzle Quest is now available from Marvel Entertainment, D3 Publisher, and Demiurge Studios for iOS, Android, Windows, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

This review is based on the Android version.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Mad Rantings - "It's The End of the Marvel Universe As We Know It"

Oooooh, boy.

And if you can't read the sarcasm in that, welcome. You must be new here.

So, I was traipsing about the internet and came across this.

...well, it was bound to happen eventually.  I mean, in spite of the fact that Joe Quesada said back in 2005 that if the main 616 and Ultimate universes ever crossed over, Marvel would officially be out of ideas (though he later reversed his position like we wish he would about One More Day),this was going to happen at some point and in some shape or form.  Nobody can really deny it. Why? Because comic book writers love their retcons.

Ah, yes, retcons!  Things that - when used well - can wipe away any inconsistencies or flubs in a story or - when used poorly as is often - can screw up things for years.  In this case...I don't know.  Throwing together not only the main Marvel universe and the Ultimate, but several others from What Ifs and spin-offs? Very tricky.  And then, of course, there's the title.

Secret Wars.

...really? You took the most beloved and well-remembered crossover in Marvel history (y'know, the one crossover that actually does what a crossover is supposed to do in comic books?) and decided to make that your title? Congrats on handing yourself a massive pair of shoes to fill.  Really, Secret Wars seems to be the last great Marvel crossover that anyone cares to remember (though, as I've heard, Mutant Massacre in the 90s wasn't terrible).  While Civil War tried to make Captain America the bad guy in a moral debate (which is insane), Original Sin had a very interesting whodunit story about the death of Uatu the Watcher that turned into being more concerned about advertising the tie-in comics than about telling a decent or even intelligible story, and even Spider-Verse has had some questionable moments (though I have enjoyed it, by the way), Secret Wars had only one thing going for it.

It. Kicked. Ass.

Thrown onto an alien world by an immensely powerful entity, it was a simple fight of good versus evil.  Heroes on one side, villains on the other, badassery ensues.  Now, that's not to say that stories that give us heroes versus heroes can't be good.  However, the problem is...none of Marvel's crossovers that involve heroes versus heroes have been. This is because either, A) Marvel attempts to flaunt a ridiculous premise that they don't actually bother to explain fully and attempt to turn the person who is the paragon of all things good, decent, and moral into the villain (Civil War), or B) Marvel has done so many of these types of crossovers by this point that even if the attempt were made to do this, it would fall completely flat.  The "hero vs. hero" concept has become so played out that it's become passe.

Needless to say, I'm hoping the new Secret Wars really isn't going to be that.  Though now, I can actually say a few good things about it.  Namely how everything is now together in terms of characters and ideas.  This is actually good, since it would allow new ideas to be created and new opportunities to be explored.  However, where this is going to trip up - if it does anywhere - is in the execution.  Like with many, many Marvel events before it.

That I can't really speculate on.  I admit, despite my previous sarcasm they do have me in - hook, line, and sinker.  I, like many I'm sure, are very curious to see how this will be done.  Am I going to be surprised if it's terrible? Nope.  Will I enjoy it if it is?  ...well, yeah. I'll be surprised, but yeah.

To be truthful, all I've been reading of late has been Amazing Spider-Man (a tip of the hat to Mr. Slott for a thoroughly enjoyable return of the character thus far), Scarlet Spiders, and Nova and while I know at least the first title will be involved in it, not entirely sure about the others - though I sincerely hope that the adventures of Sam Alexander will continue.  Really, been very much enjoying that.

Of course, I speak of this event as though it were just another crossover when Marvel has gone out of its way to say that this is how the Marvel universe will be from now until the end of time.  Axel Alonso himself said so.  My response?

"Sure, until you retcon it."

Marvel's "Secret Wars" will begin publishing in May of 2015.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Amazing Spider-Man"

Xbox 360 Box Art

 A general rule of thumb with video games is that if they’re movie tie-ins, they tend to suck.  And I don’t mean in the sense of “Oh, it’s just a bad game”, oh, no, no, no, no. I mean more in the “Thor: God of Thunder” suck. Yeah, remember that? Remember having to focus on one point on the frigging screen to be able to fly?

 Every so often, however, there proves to be an exception to the rule.  A prime example that shows up in a lot of critic’s favorite games lists is Spider-Man 2, based off of the Sam Raimi film of the same name.  It gets praised quite often for the free roaming of being able to just spend hours web swinging around New York, finding collectables and ignoring the cries of help from the people on the street below, and it’s deserving of the praise. It was just a fun game all in all.  Spider-Man 3 had kind of the same thing going for it, but had the problems of being too similar to 2 and, of course, the movie it was a tie-in for being a gigantic piece of crap.

Fast forward to the present and we see the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, which I’ve seen an enjoyed (and talk about here). And, so - perhaps wishing to recapture the feeling of playing Spider-Man 2 – I picked up the game at my local gameshop, slapped it in my Xbox 360, and waited to see if it was just as good. And after finishing through the main quest, I have to say it did it well.

Pretty much any free-roaming Spider-Man game that you’ve actually played is this, though with some differences.  Particularly the “Web Rush” feature, which allows the player to actually stop time and get a view from behind the eyes of Spidey.  A golden, glowing image of the Webslinger will appear at various places around, dictating where Spider-Man will jettison himself towards when Web Rush is activated. This mode can also be backed out of, allowing the player to resume manual control.

Other than that, it’s pretty much every Spider-Man game you’ve played that has free roaming.  Some after game subplots involve hunting down escaped mental patients and bringing them back to the police, getting diseased peoples off the street and to treatment facilities, and special challenge modes involving Bruce Campbell and helicopters.

…it all makes sense in context, I swear.

All in all, the game is very enjoyable. I really hope it comes out with some DLC to length the game, however. While there are many things to do within the game world, I’ll eventually get bored as I did in Spider-Man 2 with roaming around fighting the five or six kinds of random crimes that the game will generate on a random basis.  Still, all in all, it’s a very enjoyable game. I’m not going to call it the Arkham City of Spider-Man, but it is a pretty fun ride.  See ya next time!

The Amazing Spider-Man is available from Activision, Beenox, and Marvel.

This review is based on the Xbox 360 version.