A PERSONAL COMICS MILESTONE

So, this last week, I reached an epic moment in my comic book collecting. 

If you know a little about me then you know that I've been collecting comics for about 30 years and one of the abiding books that I've always collected has been The Avengers.

Well, last week I bought Uncanny Avengers #17 and the milestone that this comic represents is that:  this will be the last single issue comic I ever buy and collect.  That's right, I'm out of the single issue buying business.  I will no longer buy single issues of any comic ever again.  Why? you may ask.

The simple fact is that single issues have become to costly for what they deliver.  Which is too say that single issues just don't have much content anymore and it takes 10 issues to tell a story that in the old days they could have told in 3 issues. 

Of course, the reason for this is that the comic book business is now geared toward selling collected trade paperbacks and the individual issues have suffered as a result.  Therefore, I'm going to follow the business template and stop buying individual issues and start only collecting trades.

And it is fitting that this issue of Uncanny Avengers is the last single issue I will ever collect because of what happens in this issue.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

If you are not familiar with Uncanny Avengers, here is a brief recap of where the title comes from.

First off, there is still the main Avengers comic which comes from... uh... nowhere.  And fits into Marvel chronology... uh... nowhere.

But, Uncanny Avengers grew right out of the events of Avengers vs. X-Men which was a huge story from 2012 in which the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, the X-Men and Avengers were on opposite sides as to what the Phoenix Force was going to do, it was eventually hijacked by Cyclops, who then killed Prof X who was trying to stop him, and then he in turn was stopped by the Scarlet Witch and Hope (the intended host of the Phoenix Force, and this all ties in with House of M and all the X-Men Messiah stories of the previous 3 years). 

Out of all this, Captain America gets together with Cyclops' (who has now been imprisoned) brother Havok and they decide to create the Avengers Unity Squad aka The Uncanny Avengers comprised of one of the best lineups of Avengers and X-Men that I've ever seen or dreamt of.

On the team is team leader Havok, Captain America, Wasp, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Wolverine, Rogue, and Sunfire.  It is a powerful lineup and a great team with all kinds of relationships and drama such as the fact that Rogue hates Scarlet Witch for all the damage she did to mutantkind at the end of House of M (No More Mutants!).

Now we fast forward to issue #17 which is the end of The Apocalypse Twins storyline that has been going on for the last 10 issues or so (see I told you about the content of these books).  And...

HOLY CANOLIS!!!

In this book, Cap is killed by the Horsemen of Death, Grim Reaper (who, of course, is Wonder Man's brother and who has killed Rogue in an earlier issue right as she had just stabbed Scarlet Witch with absorbed Wolverine bone-claws, Scarlet Witch, however, lives just long enough to absorb all of Wonder Man's energy (so he's gone) and cast a spell which transports all of Earth's mutants to a space ark that the Apocalypse Twins (who are the grown children of Archangel (who Wolverine killed in X-Men because he had gone insane) have and transport them away from Earth because... ), a Celestial shows up to judge the Earth (summoned by The Apocalypse Twins) and then he DESTROYS THE EARTH!!!  Everyone dies (except for the escaping mutants in the space ark and Thor who escapes through a portal to the Asgard dimension).

HOLY CANOLIS!!!

What an issue and, as it turns out, what a way to conclude my single  issue comic collecting with my favorite hero, Captain America killed, the Avengers failing to save the day, and the Earth destroyed (as The Watcher watches it all unfold with a sad expression on his face).  Powerful stuff.  A true milestone in Marvel comics and my collecting of those comics.



 

DISAPPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

So, as I've said recently on this blog, I am currently reading all the Hercule Poirot mystery novels by Agatha Christie.  I have just completed Appointment With Death and I must say that this is the first Poirot novel that I can honestly say I was disappointed with.

The main reason is that the murderer seems a little far-fetched and the way it was done was a little bit unbelievable, but this mystery does have a very interesting premise as it is the mystery in which everyone had a motive, everyone had the opportunity and everyone was lying about the events surrounding the murder.  Accordingly, it is left to Poirot to sort out all the mess and get at the truth but once the truth is revealed, I felt it didn't really work as smoothly as some of her other books.

Additionally, I mention this novel specifically because there was a movie of this novel made in 1988 starring Peter Ustinov as Poirot.  It was his 6th time playing Poirot as he had made two feature films prior to this one and 3 made-for-TV movies.  Despite the fact that Ustinov presents a grey-haired and mustachioed Poirot instead of the traditional black (such as Albert Finney in the movie version of The Murder on the Orient Express), I like Ustinov as Poirot and he does his usual fine job with the part.  Also it is interesting to note that the movie version of Appointment With Death is the only Ustinov-Poirot movie to never be released on DVD while all his other movies have been released on DVD.  Now the movie version both streamlines and complicates the plot presenting a version which is about as non-convincing as the book. 

In conclusion, I must say that I was disappointed in Appointment With Death and that also brings up another question:  What appointment with death?  The title is never explained and I don't understand it.  If anyone can enlighten me after reading the book, let me know because I'm completely in the dark here.

As a side note, here is the movie poster for Appointment With Death:

  



YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

This feature on my blog showcases one of my great loves and personal hobbies:

FILM MUSIC.

I am a passionate fan of film music and my collection of film music is vast but I want to combine that with a visual aspect (which film music should be aligned too) so I'm going to use You Tube to accomplish this goal.

I will search through You Tube and find videos that feature film music and embed those videos on this blog.

So,

without further ado, here is the

YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

In my last Film Music Musings, I posted my Top Five Scores for 2013 and mentioned that I was putting John Williams' score to The Book Thief on the list even though I had not seen the movie (which I don't normally do as a general rule) but now I've seen the movie and it is most assuredly and securely on the list as I can definitely say that The Book Thief is the best film I have seen in the last several years and the finest film so far this decade and the score just adds so much to this beautifully touching film.  It is a truly great film and score so if you haven't seen it, go find a discount theatre immediately and see this film.



TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

If you got to know me a little, you would find out that I'm one of the few regular people that is on Twitter.

One thing that I like about Twitter is that you can get sent all kinds of interesting and funny and amazing pics, so I'm going to be posting those pics that I find interesting or funny or amazing.

So

without futher ado here is the

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

 

JESUS!!!

 

 



YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

This feature on my blog showcases one of my great loves and personal hobbies:

FILM MUSIC.

I am a passionate fan of film music and my collection of film music is vast but I want to combine that with a visual aspect (which film music should be aligned too) so I'm going to use You Tube to accomplish this goal.

I will search through You Tube and find videos that feature film music and embed those videos on this blog.

So,

without further ado, here is the

YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

 

Here is the main title of Brian Tyler's Thor 2.  Now I must say that the movie was sort of a mess with the screenwriters bastardizing one of Thor's most epic story arcs.

In case you didn't know, this story arc comes from the issues around Thor #350 and in the comics, Malekith (who is the leader of the Dark Elves) steals the casket of ancient winters (which was in the first Thor movie, I don't know why they abandoned it for this movie) and blankets the Earth with a vast winter storm and then invades Earth with his Dark Elves.  He does this to lure the Asgardian army to Earth leaving Asgard defenseless so that the great fire demon, Surtur can invade Asgard and light his Doomsday Sword in the Eternal Flame and burn Asgard to Ragnarok.  All goes according to plan but Thor figures things out and returns to Asgard just as Surtur is at the gates (and has knocked Heimdall for a loop). 

Thor and Surtur battle, with Thor coming out the worse for wear, but before he is killed by Surtur, Odin rescues him and with his magics, heals Thor of his wounds.  In the meantime, Loki shows up and battles Surtur (because he wants to be the only one to destroy Asgard and kill Odin).  Finally, Odin and Thor show back up and then the three square off in a mighty throwdown with Surtur.  Thor and Loki are subdued but then Odin uses his Odinpower to grow to huge size to combat Surtur in hand-to-hand combat (remember Surtur is a giant, and I mean GIANT, fire demon) and they both fall into a crevice that closes up after they are swallowed up.  Thor and Loki both yell, "Father!!!" but Odin is gone. 

This turns out to be the first of Odin's apparent deaths and I must tell you that at the time that I read these issues I was completely Asgardian Aghast.  It was powerful stuff and that is why the writers of the movie chose these particular characters to exploit in this new Thor movie.

My main beef with the story is the changing of the cask of ancient winters to this darkness and aether thing.  Couldn't all this have been solved by the Norse God of Light, Balder the Brave? Yep.  That's what I thought.  LAME!!!

But the score is pretty good and that's all that really matters.





YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

I'm going to introduce a new feature on my blog showcasing one of my great loves and personal hobbies:

FILM MUSIC.

I am a passionate fan of film music and my collection of film music is vast but I want to combine that with a visual aspect (which film music should be aligned too) so I'm going to use You Tube to accomplish this goal.

I will search through You Tube and find videos that feature film music and embed those videos on this blog.

So,

without further ado, here is the

YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

The Lone Ranger was one of my favorite movies out last year and the score by Hans Zimmer was surprisingly good with actual themes and the great finale utilizing Rossini's William Tell Overture.  Now usually I don't like classical music used in movies (hello 2001: A Space Odyssey - Horrible) but in this instance the film was wedded so well to the music that it heightened the action onscreen and brought the whole movie into focus.  So here is an edited version of the end credits with great scenes from the movie itself.  Enjoy!!



TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

If you got to know me a little, you would find out that I'm one of the few regular people that is on Twitter.

One thing that I like about Twitter is that you can get sent all kinds of interesting and funny and amazing pics, so I'm going to be posting those pics that I find interesting or funny or amazing.

So

without futher ado here is the

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

 

TIGER HUG!!!