Clap For The Wolfman? A Spoiler-Free Review!

 

I tried really, really hard to like Universal’s update of The Wolfman, I really did. I’m a sucker for lycanthropy flicks, having seen The Howling, Wolfen, and An American Werewolf In London more times than I care to remember. I followed the movie’s tortured path to the multiplex (more on that later) to the screen with much interest, and made sure I was there to support it on opening night. I even proudly wore my Monster Squad “Wolfman’s Got Nards” t-shirt! Unfortunately, despite having a good cast and the most dependable go-to guy for monster effects in its corner, The Wolfman feels less like a movie and more like product—a once-valuable corporate property being dusted off and trotted out once more to make a few bucks.

 Acclaimed thespian Lawrence Talbot returns to his family’s ancestral estate on the moors when his brother is killed by a mysterious beast, and when he joins the hunt to find the creature, he is attacked and bitten by the feral creature. As Talbot recovers from his injuries, he is protected by his eccentric father (Anthony Hopkins, now apparently the go-to guy to play the Crazy Old Man in classic monster remakes—see his performance as Professor Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula remake for more details) and nursed back to health by his brother’s grieving fiancée (Emily Blunt). However, once the full moon rises again, Talbot sprouts hair and fangs and goes on a killing spree. No amount of Victorian-era crackpot psychiatry--like a good old fashioned strait-jacketed dunking into a pool of ice cubes, for instance--will cure him; it seems only a silver bullet will do the job.

 The cast of The Wolfman acquits themselves admirably, particularly Del Toro. With his haunted eyes and hangdog intensity, he’s the perfect actor to play a civilized man struggling with his inner beast. Hugo Weaving has a nice turn as the inspector hot on the werewolf’s trail, and Hopkins throws himself into his part with loony gusto. The creature effects were designed by the legendary Rick Baker, who won an Academy Award for his work in An American Werewolf In London. His upright-walking, partially clothed Wolf Man has a nice classic look, and the transformation sequences recall AAWIL’s bone-wrenching grossness. It’s too bad that the majority of the transformations are achieved using CGI, as their video-game smoothness can’t measure up to the how-the-heck-did-they-do-that magic of Baker’s earlier practical effects work. The transformations themselves also whiz by too fast—any fan of the genre will happily tell you that that’s usually the best part of a werewolf movie! This rushed pace represents an overall problem with the film, which at times feels like one big montage. We’re introduced to the characters in a hurry, their relationships develop too quickly…even the story’s Big Twist seems to arrive about one act too early. Aside from some hinted-at Freudian ickiness in the Talbot family, there’s not much in the way of subtext or relevance either, just monster madness for its own sake. Which is fine, but not always enough to make a movie stay with you after the credits roll.

 The Wolfman was a famously troubled production—original director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) left the project over creative differences right before shooting, and Joe Johnston (director of The Rocketeer, and soon-to-be Captain America helmer) stepped in at the last possible second. The film was pulled from its original 2008 release for reshoots and retooling, and then yanked from Universal’s schedule again right before its proposed Halloween 2009 release. With all the behind-the-scenes drama, it’s a wonder The Wolfman is watchable at all, but it is—I’d certainly rather sit through it again a dozen more times than have to watch another Saw sequel. Sadly, though, I don’t see this new interpretation of the werewolf legend capturing the zeitgeist any time soon. Maybe we should hold out hope for the long-gestating remake of The Creature From The Black Lagoon?

Archie Sunday: Veronica gives Archie a sex tape

In honour of Valentine's Day, I thought we'd get a little sexy with Archie Sunday.

When I worked at Strange Adventures, sometimes I would get a parent in the store who would express concern that their child enjoyed Archie comics. They would ask if I could suggest something less adult. It really confused me, but now I think I see what they are talking about.

So our story starts off innocently enough. Archie is suffering from insomnia, so Veronica buys him a tape that is supposed to help him sleep.

Archie appreciates the gesture, and oddly refers to his dream girl as a "good kid." Now let's hear that tape!

This tape is a first class ticket to Bonertown!

Archie is pretty excited about his sex dreams.

Eager to escape the harsh, unsexy reality of Riverdale, Archie falls asleep at Pop's.

Veronica is having none of this. Archie signed a contract assuring that all erotic dreams would feature only Veronica. This is a clear infringement.

So Veronica returns to the store, tape in hand, and demands that the salesman play it for her. It happens to start at a particularly alarming, and non sleep related, passage.

So after standing there for awhile while the salesman gets hot and bothered, Veronica purchases a different sleep tape and slips it into Archie's tape player. This reveals Archie's fear of sheep and sheep wranglers.

I'll bet his dreams that night were all messed up.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Forgotten Characters of Yesteryear: Mighty Hawkhat

It's time for a little forgotten history, friends! A character so obscure that I guarantee you've never heard of him: Hawkman's long-discarded sidekick:

MIGHTY HAWKHAT!

Mighty Hawkhat was one of those strange storytelling elements of the early days of comics, things which might merit an entire story arc to explain today but that had no origin at all. How archaeologist and reincarnated Egyptian prince Carter Hall acquired what was evidently a living creature resembling a giant, tentacled hawk's head was never addressed, nor was it explained why such a creature was worn by hall while in his role of Hawkman. It was all just part of the experience.

Hawkman and Mighty Hawkhat shared a number of adventures together. Initially, Mighty Hawkhat could not speak and contributed his opinions of the proceedings through exaggerated facial expressions, though curiously these expressions seldom matched the tone of the story.

In fact, Mighty Hawkhat usually seemed to be grinning and winking at the events that were going on around him, as if to break the tension of the often-violent mysteries that Hawkman would find himself embroiled in.

If he was attempting to court favour with his young audience, however, Mighty Hawkhat failed miserably. Readers evidently hated him, sly grins and all. In an effort to salvage the character, he was given a more ominous aspect:

He was also given a voice, though in an effort to steer the character away from his light-hearted beginnings that voice tended to be even darker than the already serious Hawkman's own:

But the change in character did nothing to change how the fans felt about Mighty Hawkhat. In fact, one of the aspects of the personality makeover served to further alienate the reading public. The revamped Hawkhat was inexplicably jealous of Shiera Saunders, Carter Hall's love interest:

... his constant barrage of disparaging remarks and dirty looks served less to liven up the series that to derail it into panel after panel of tedious "banter".

Mighty Hawkhat eventually proved to be more of a hinderance than a help to Hawkman's war on crime and was discarded, never to be heard from again. Hawkman invested in an inanimate hawk headdress and never looked back. Probably for the best, but one always wonders what might have been.

Rest in Peace, Mighty Hawkhat.

John Buys Comics Like They Are Hotcakes That Are Going Out of Style

Hit Monkey (One Shot)

What a strange little comic.

I bought this pretty much on a whim and due to an abiding love for odd characters, but honestly I was expecting something along the lines of Mr. Stuffins: a funny-style book where a lot of the humour was generated by taking a tough-guy role and filling it with an adorable-style character. Instead, this is more akin to… I have no idea what. It’s somewhere between a Kurosawa film and Hinterland Who’s Who, if that makes any sense, which it won’t if you’re not Canadian.

Basically, I wasn’t surprised by the fact that I enjoyed this book but am almost in shock over the fact that it was actually so good. It’s good enough that I’m not letting myself write any spoilers, people! And that’s hard!

Human Target No. 1

Man, I can’t believe that I’ve become one of those “no TV” guys. I did it completely on accident, I swear. I still download Death Comes to Town every week, regular.

But I am a guy without a TV, and so I miss stuff like the fact that there’s a Human Target series on Fox. I literally just found out on the ISB yesterday. And even though Sims was giving the show a hard time about not actually being about a guy who disguises himself as other guys, you know, like THE HUMAN TARGET does, I was a bit interested. I picked up the comic of the show based on a comic.

Bleah. If ever a comic read like a TV show, this is it, all glib one-liners and tough talk. (not like a comic book at all, no sirree) Quiet, parenthetical aside. This is teevee-style glib dialogue and it doesn’t belong in a comic book. It just serves to underscore the fact that this version of Christopher Chance is just some Transporter-like glorified bodyguard. Too bad he doesn’t have a gimmick to make himself interesting like I don’t know dressing up like his client and having identity problems…

Double bleah.

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom

So I guess that it has now been conclusively proven that I cannot resist any comic that involves HP Lovecraft having Cthulhu Mythos-style adventures, especially if they’re adorable. I managed to hold out for about five minutes before finally putting this one on my pile, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

But really, how can you go wrong with a story that involves a young, huge-eyed Lovecraft reading a magical book and being transported to a regular-style fairytale land in trouble which he, as the kid from another land, has to fix. It all works quite well, both as a young-person-having-an-adventure romp and as a Mythos tome.

And of course, tentacles abound.

The Unwritten No. 10 – No specific reason, but this was the first issue that felt to me like the series was going to be around for the long haul. This is a very good thing and basically exactly what I’ve been wishing for the last year (ish).

Invincible Presents Atom Eve and Rex Splode No 3 (of 3) – What fun! I miss Rex.

Batman and Robin No. 8 – Now this is proper Morrison writing: jam-packed with ideas and on the very cusp of losing you without actually doing so, with at least one idea per issue that makes you shout out “Of course!”

Daytripper No. 3 – Oh man I just got that it’s the same guy in every issue. I’m freaking out, dude.

Solomon Kane: Death’s Black Riders No. 2 – I’m trying to follow the Hellboy Protocol on these Solomon Kane series and not just go “Omigod you guys this issue was awesome just like the last eight and Solomon Kane shot another dude in the face!” every time one comes out, but this issue Allie and Guevara managed to incorporate the terrific little Kane story “Rattle of Bones” into the ongoing narrative and with aplomb, so I must use this space to praise them mightily. I raise my imaginary glass to ye, comicsmen!

Action Comics No. 27 – I demand more Kryptonian mythology! Well done, everyone.

Booster Gold No. 29 – Wait, first Metal Men, now Blue Beetle? Stop being cowards about things, DC. Keep the backups going, you jerks. Putting a little message in the last page doesn’t make things cool between us over this.

Adventure Comics No. 7 – Ugh. Bad call making the first issue under a new creative team a tie-in to Blackest Night. I’ll reserve the right to do a SECOND MONTH OF JUDGEMENT on this one.

R.E.B.E.L.S. No. 13 – Even if this series weren’t great every month, the drawings of Despero’s head regrowing a tiny little body would make it totally worth buying.

It's Like A Comic, But In A Book!

 One of the best things about working in a comic store is having a look at what turns up in collections that people sell to us. More often than not, it's a pile of W.I.L.D.Cats or Youngblood that are headed right for the discount bin, but occasionally some cool old-timey treasures turn up. My favourite of these are the now-obsolete repackagings of vintage material that are fairly hard to come by, from the days when publishers were still experimenting with people's ideas of what constituted a comics-delivery system, so to speak. I'm talking about the old over-sized treasury editions (my favourite of these is the Kirby 2001: A Space Odyssey adaptation, but I'm still keeping an eye out for the original Superman Vs. Spider-Man), or the novel-sized digest reprints where you would only usually get about two panels per page. However, this little gem appeared in a collection a few weeks back:

Published by Simon & Schuster, this collection features a pretty random collection of pretty awesome Spidey classics. There's some early John Romita-drawn issues (yes, despite what the cover would have you believe, somebody other than Stan Lee was involved) featuring old favourites like Electro and the Rhino, and the notoriously non-Code approved three-issue arc by Lee and Gil Kane where Harry gets hooked on drugs, triggering his old man to become the Green Goblin again. This arc is also notable for having appeared at a time when Stan Lee decided to stop using so many exclamation points all the time, resulting in weirdly deadpan delivery from everyone. Check it out: 

The issue after this one is the one where they basically just erased any punctuation that wasn't a necessary exclamation point or question mark, which reads as though everyone is talking in a weird monotone voice (there's a great article about this short-lived phenomenon over at Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed). That drug dealer guy is awesome, by the way. Only a career criminal could get away with that look. Speaking of fashion, though, let's take a better look at Peter and Harry's wardrobe at this point...

Whoa, what the hell is going on? Harry at least has the excuse of a raging drug habit to explain away his orange suit and yellow turtleneck combo, but Peter's outfit has entirely too many tassels. He looks like Beyonce!

I sort of got off track here. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, old Spider-Man comics are the best. Especially when you can get 'em in a now-defunct format.

Dateline: Smallville

Local couple Jonathan and Martha Kent, known affectionately as "Pa" and "Ma" respectively, found to have only one joke:

Sources indicate that they've been using the joke daily for the last fifteen years, alternating punchline duties biweekly.

The Kents' son Clark was unavailable for comment.