Category: review

Review: ‘Wizzywig’ by Ed Piskor

Posted by Brian Warmoth – October 9, 2012

Ed Piskor’s Top Shelf graphic novel “Wizzywig” was another title that I picked up a few weeks ago at SPX. I first became aware of his work years ago when he collaborated on “Macedonia” with the late Harvey Pekar, and I even interviewed Pekar about that project for an article at my old job. Looking at Piskor’s work now and then, it’s easy to see why he and Pekar fit together so well (besides the elegant similarities between their names). Piskor’s illustrative style slips intelligently between fits of comic expression, burdensome human experience and detailed attention to minutiae—a skill that suits him well in this near-historical fiction tale of a hacker’s life.

“Wizzywig” follows the social and intellectual growth of a young man named Kevin Phenicle. Piskor’s take on the character, who goes by the handle “Boingthump,” is simple and brisk in its pace. The kid has a Tintin-like face in a world of slimy, unfriendly people who don’t understand his curiosities and motivations. Ultimately, the story leverages that condition to frame Kevin’s incarceration and the media-promoted fear that he inspires in the general public through his hacking. And the book winds up feeling full and balanced at the end as a result—littered with jargon and touchstones from the time, such as phreaking and bulletin board systems.

Piskor doesn’t waste a beat in “Wizzywig.” It’s not a graphic novel that cares a great deal about exploring the inner feelings and emotional connections between its cast members. Instead, the story unfolds a arms’ length from the reader, inviting questions and disgust as characters affected by Boingthump’s action sound off in panels and on TV about what they think he must be like. The whole book is set up to juxtapose Kevin’s life against that shrill chorus of the uninformed public and riled-up punditry, and it invites discussion about how Kevin should be treated or understood as a hacker.

There is certainly a Mark Zuckerberg-in-”The Social Network” quality to Kevin’s life, driven by social inadequacies to pursue other ways of relating to the world and enriching himself. Also, it brings his life to a head at the end in a way that I’ll admit caught me a little off guard, connecting his story to that of Bradley Manning and Wikileaks.

The convergence of their themes and stories makes sense. Piskor seems to be asking, after fully exploring Kevin, “Who in today’s society is facing similar treatment for rogue behavior and the invasion of secret places?” The conclusion leaves everything on a slightly off note, which is fine and unsettling, even if it does come of as a bit preachy from a book that has otherwise avoided much moralizing.

As a tour through the subject matter, a quick history lesson and long-form comic laced with Easter eggs for nerds, I think it’s safe to recommend this book. Be prepared to digest its political message, and be ready to learn a thing or two if you aren’t a regular reader of 2600, but I would think if you’re already considering giving it a look, these are all things that you would be open to.

Review: ‘Bjornstrand’ by Renée French

Posted by Brian Warmoth – September 23, 2012

Two elements that I can definitely walk into a book ready to love are the giant, mysterious monster genre and the furry, soft-focus art of Renée French. Her comic “Bjornstrand,” which I picked up at SPX last weekend, delivered on both counts, and it was every bit the plushy, bizarro children’s book belonging in a box alongside David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” that I would have expected it to be.

I remember one of the first indie titles I got to review for Wizard Magazine when I was on staff there back in the day being a Renée French book (2007′s “Micrographica,” I believe), and that was my introduction to her work.

“Bjornstrand” the book is an extension of the creature/character exploration French has been doing in her webcomic “Baby Bjornstrand.” In one sense it’s a little reminiscent of “Cloverfield,” in that it’s about a mysterious, potentially deadly creature emerging out of nowhere—and the story is being told through the lens of French’s art, which endows any comic story she’s telling with a slight sense of vagueness.

The tale is playful, due to the inherent contradictions being implemented. Every page is devoid of any anger or wrath, though the language of the tiny speck characters is full of obscenity. Bjornstrand is gigantic and capable of rampant destruction, but his eyes are cute, shiny balls that make him look like a blown-up Pokémon critter. Even the art style, which is soft and dreamlike contrasts with the realistic banter and harsh tension that drive the comic.

Like Tom Spurgeon, I found myself wondering about the significance of the title character’s name and whether or not it’s a nod to Gunnar Björnstrand. (I wondered about this ahead of SPX, but neglected to bring it up when I had the chance.) I have seen a lot of Ingmar Bergman movies starring Gunnar Björnstrand, and it’s certainly noteworthy that many of those films take place in isolated locales near the water, much like the setting in French’s comic.

Additionally, I am going to break out my Swedish knowledge here and point out that if you split that name into two pieces—”björn” and “strand”—those words mean “bear” and “beach.” So there is a possibility the name is just there to poke fun at the dichotomy that is Bjornstrand (or embody the essence of a beast emerging from the water).

Personally, I like to think that all of these competing ideas are in play, helping French’s narrative to keep the reader on their toes as she treads carefully, writing a cute story that could topple and plunge into horrific chaos at any moment.

Review: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)

Posted by Brian Warmoth – August 12, 2012

Fair warning here. This review contains some spoilers.

As an event in history, director Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film is almost impossible to consider apart from two tragedies—the Aurora shooting and the death of Heath Ledger that forever colored “Batman: The Dark Knight.” In turn, both of those events have forever colored how people discuss “The Dark Knight Rises” and how Nolan’s trilogy will be remembered.

“The Dark Knight Rises” deserves to be considered as a single film and as Nolan’s final word on the title character, though, and those are the two perspectives I brought to my final evaluation of a Batman film that failed to articulate Batman’s meaning and nature as gracefully as its predecessors, yet ultimately shut the door assertively on Nolan’s Gotham City universe, leaving a memorable history and culture behind with a few successful, pleasant surprises.

In the scheme of the trilogy, I see the underlying premises of Nolan’s Batman films thusly:

1. “Batman Begins” (2005) — Who is Batman?

2. “The Dark Knight” (2008) — Who isn’t Batman?

3. “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012) — What is the absence of Batman?

The franchise’s first two installments worked so well because Nolan was working with a blank slate and almost incessantly hammered away at what Batman means as a symbol, how that makes him more than just a man and why that struggle against competing ideologies is what defines him. In the cultural backdrop of this discussion were the 9/11 attacks and the real-life urban terror that the actions of villains such as Ra’s al Ghul, The Joker and Bane now resemble in the public eye.

My esteemed colleagues Rick Marshall and Laura Hudson (as well as many others) have already identified the odd plot holes and technical oddities that populate “The Dark Knight Rises.” Before moving on into my broader critique, I would just state for the record that the bomb’s blast radius, Bruce Wayne’s climbing apparatus and Bane’s stabbing are all noticeable hiccups for the film. I accept the necessity of the suspension of disbelief for sci-fi, fantasy and superhero films as genres, but these errors all seem like problems that could have easily been addressed through tiny script tweaks or camera angle swaps.

Meanwhile, the underlying problem I kept returning to as I watched this story dealt with Bane’s nature as a character. Heath Ledger’s Joker made for a compelling contrast against Christian Bale’s Batman because the two were so clearly linked by their disregard for the letter of the law but separated by their choices to channel their anger into distinct livelihoods. The Joker chose anarchy and rampant, amoral destruction, while Batman chose the preservation of life. Ra’s al Ghul believed in wiping out un-correctable civilizations in favor for rebuilding better societies in their places. In both of those cases, Batman had overlapping experiences but was defined by a clear difference of opinion or tactics.

That understood, Bane’s story came packaged in potential. “The Dark Knight Rises” seemed like it could be the ultimate post-financial-collapse Batman story with a heavy dose of “Knightfall”-inspired beats. Ultimately, however, Bane’s nature, motivation and backstory changed considerably from the comics. He became a kind of Ra’s al Ghul lite who was built up as a mastermind, only to be demoted by a plot twist (one which I didn’t see coming and did appreciate for its shock value, by the way). Bane could have been the ultimately dirty-tactics Robin Hood, but instead he became diluted by camp and bravado that limited the scope of his character. We were left with something much more digestible as a perceivable character than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze, but much lower on the totem poles of gravitas and genius than Liam Neeson’s Ra’s and Ledger’s Joker.

The Russian-doll-style twists toward the end compounded the problem left by Bane’s motivational vacuum and put a lot more pressure on the film to succeed as the third chapter of a trilogy, especially since it began bending over backwards to slip in quick story recaps and cameos in the final act. “Dark Knight Rises,” didn’t succeed in illuminating anything new about Nolan’s Batman for me, but land the franchise in an unexpected way that felt like it made sense. DC films have a weird tradition (and by tradition I mean “Superman Returns” and “TDKR”) of turning their heroes into family men now. That’s another issue altogether, but—corny, forced Robin reference aside—Nolan’s trilogy has been put to bed in a way that settled lingering plot threads and provided surprises.

“TDKR” is always going to be my third-favorite Nolan Batman film, but it’s still a Nolan Batman film, and it lived up to my baseline expectations of camera-trickery, and jolting plot revelations. In the tradition of great trilogy-enders such as “Return of the Jedi” and “Return of the King,” this one isn’t likely to be remembered on equal footing. It performed its duty honorably, though, and for that, we can be thankful.

‘The Drops of God’ Volume 1 Review: There’s only so much wine

Posted by Brian Warmoth – July 1, 2012

I don’t necessarily avoid manga in my reading diet—it’s just not a staple. I’ve enjoyed Cromartie High School, Ghost in the Shell, Akira and even a little Yotsuba&!. Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto’s The Drops of God was little off the beaten path for me—not something I would have come to naturally. As David Brothers over at ComicsAlliance wrote last year, though, it’s manga about wine. What’s not to be interested in?

Being neither a manga nor wine connoisseur, this book only had things to teach me. It’s a comic about the son of a famous wine critic, who has a quest that conveniently allows him discover and describe real-life wines or trigger a lesson on the history of French winemaking. After you begin to understand the structure and story beats that are going on, you start to get curious as a reader about what’s around the corner, what’s on a label that’s being obscured or why a wine tastes a certain way.

Yes, there is a hokey quality to the melodrama that permeates the pages of The Drops of God. Those groan-inducing sequences of a manager belittling an employee or the story’s villain pondering his master plan snowball hilariously into moments of revelation that punctuate the chapters and keep things going at a respectable pace.

I’m only one volume into this series so far, but I’ve already learned more about Henri Jayer and French vineyards than I ever would have read and remembered anywhere else.

The near-photorealistic illustrations of the labels and bottles integrate seamlessly with cartoonish illustrations to stitch together the non fiction with the fiction.

And I should note that you won’t walk into the wine department at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods able to dazzle your friends with observations and interpretations after reading this manga. In fact, most of the knowledge you glean will only be useful under significantly more expensive circumstances. However, if you do happen to wander onto some French vineyards in the future, you may find yourself significantly more informed about why a crop of grapes is going to be ideally suited for whipping up a particularly good batch of wine, as well as why that batch shouldn’t be enjoyed for at least 20 years.

‘Habibi’: A review in progress

Posted by Brian Warmoth – September 26, 2011

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund let a few copies of Craig Thompson’s new graphic novel, Habibi, out of the gate early at SPX, and seeing how I’ve been waiting to read it for the better part of the last decade, I hopped in line and snagged one. I was prepared for Thompson’s extravagant attention to detail and densely packed pages of storytelling, but Habibi surprised me in some ways that I’m still grappling with critically.

This is almost without question one of the most important graphic novel releases of the year. It overflows with elegant, elaborate and brilliantly composed hybrid imagery. Moreover, the story exists in an odd, isolated universe that feels like a fable but also teases the novel’s relationship to real world events and anchors.

The place where I’m still coming to terms with the book, though, lies in refrain of sexual violence that defines the main character. The economies of enslavement and survival that she lives through drive almost every major plot turn from beginning to end, and along the way they bring horrific moments and choices.

Habibi is a challenging and sobering read, and it’s one of those books that will make you feel like you’ve lived through a lifetime reading it. In the end, however, Dodola’s personality and humanity feel very distant and underdeveloped at times. There’s a tragedy in that absence that’s provocative, which may be the point. I’ll be interested to see some other takes though.

‘Justice League’ #1 Review: Where did everybody go?

Posted by Brian Warmoth – August 31, 2011

Once again, nothing will ever be the same in the DC Universe—at least until another company-wide crossover event comes along and throws gasoline on already-problematic fires once again. That’s the cynical way to read DC’s hero-redefining refresh that begins in Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s Justice League #1. I’m actually more hopeful, though. If “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and “Infinite Crisis” were visits to the emergency room for DC continuity, the “New 52″ initiative is a full-fledged dive into the fires of Mount Doom followed by a visit to a Lazarus Pit.

Think J.J. Abrams’ sledgehammer to the Star Trek franchise, only without all of the narrative grace tying previous cannon together with the new order of things. Therein lies the post-Flashpoint #5 mystery as Johns and Lee open up with Batman fleeing Gotham’s helicopter police across the city’s rooftops. The status quo for the Justice League’s members is all up in the air as far as we’re concerned as readers now. Batman is at odds with the police again (he clarifies as much in a conversation with Green Lantern), and he has definitely not established ties with Hal Jordan and Superman yet.

Batman is the bridge, though, between “Flashpoint” and Justice League. Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Cyborg get left in Johns’ toy chest for this issue—even though they all appear on the cover. What we do get to see, however, is a younger Superman and a quick series of scuffles showcasing Jim Lee at his best.

Green Lantern repeatedly refers to himself in the third person, and this gets absolutely obnoxious as things progress. His green constructs, particularly the surprise fire engine, are gorgeous and fitting, though. The story flows well, and it’s an effective opening act, teasing Darkseid and laying the groundwork for the title team to drift together.

Alex Sinclair’s colors remain the gold standard for superhero action stories. These panels blaze and fade with the story like the Fourth of July, and the script is serviceable and tagged with nuances such as Green Lantern’s ignorance of what “Dark Side” is and Superman’s gentle words to accompany his pink-and-blue Jordan silencing punch—or is that heat vision? (I’ve looked at it a few times, and I’m still not sure.)

Justice League #1 is a fine start. Much like Abrams’ “Star Trek,” this issue is also a work that is going to need some future context to define exactly how good it is, but as a gateway to a new era, it feels strong. It’s funny to think that Marvel turned to Lee to define the look for their spit-shined X-Men title 20 years ago, and he’s being called upon once more to do the same and more for the Justice League. The entire “New 52″ strategy is laced with old approaches drawn up in a plan to reach new readers while keeping the old and faithful interested, though. The final recipe looks a lot like the ’90s with a rationed dose of Marvel’s Ultimate flavor.

So what does the post-Flashpoint DCU taste like? It’s difficult to say one issue into the new frontier, but they’re certainly starting out with mostly familiar ingredients.

‘Flashpoint’ #5 Review: Batman wept

Posted by Brian Warmoth – August 31, 2011

The end of the DC Universe’s final sprawling crossover event before its much-ballyhooed reboot arrived today in Flashpoint #5. Once more, the burden of DC’s Gordian continuity knot falls upon The Flash, and this is the tale of how he ultimately confronts Eobard Thawne and resolves one scrambled universe cluster-belch and ushers in a newer, shinier universe that DC’s execs hope will be more accessible to new superhero comic book readers.

Without spoiling anything for you, The Flash succeeds. (Well, we’ll see how many new readers the reboot attracts, but at least the continuity reset bomb has been detonated.)

Geoff Johns wrote this story, and it’s as Johnsian as anything DC has published in recent memory. If you pick up this issue expecting to see a marathon safari of goodbyes and Easter eggs littered across the DCU, checking off every last character in your old Skybox DC Comics trading card set, you will leave feeling disappointed. “Flashpoint” is a tale for Barry Allen fans, and in the end, the only characters you really need to be acquainted with to understand Flashpoint #5 are Allen and Batman.

The fight dialogue is awkward and stilted, and the crowd scenes cram in flocks of characters at a time without much effort at explaining who’s here and why (there have been four key issues and more tie-ins than I’ll stop to count right now to take care of that). Nevertheless, the final reckoning for Wonder Woman and Aquaman is ultra-hasty and almost comically abrupt.

That said, after the lightning-infused rumble concludes, the power in this issue lies after the staple. I’m not going to spoil anything too much for you, but the closing pages provide a glimpse at what’s to come in the “New 52″ DCU as the Justice League members get reestablished and the post-”Flashpoint” world takes shape. As a look through the keyhole, so to speak, Johns finished on a potent note. He lands this crazy train of a crossover flaming hot, but he does so with enough momentum to keep things interesting. Furthermore, Andy Kubert’s informed pencils handle a crowded cast of old, new, and really new costumes formidably.

And that leads me to the one big (potential spoiler) question I have at the end of this book. Has DC decided to give Batman a post-Frank Miller chill pill going forward. Barry shares a brief moment with Bruce that won’t spoil here (you’re welcome), but the entire finale comes down to a defining moment where we see Bruce Wayne as emotionally vulnerable as we ever have—and in front of a fellow hero nonetheless. This event is obviously going to have lasting implications. Johns and DC chose these tears to be the opening curtain to Justice League and the rest of their new U, so I want to know—what is our Batman for a new generation going to be like out in the wild?

Review: “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011)

Posted by Brian Warmoth – August 4, 2011

Hollywood has its formulas for action flicks, screenwriters have their story beat quotas and Marvel Studios superhero films have to straddle the demands of savvy readers paying to see characters they love and the demands of audience members who have never heard of Captain America’s younger sidekick. This year, Marvel tasked Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” with bringing Jack Kirby’s glowing, cosmic version of Norse mythology to the masses, and director Joe Johnston took on the task of interpreting World War II in the Marvel Universe for a modern audience in “Captain America: The First Avenger.”

Somehow he managed to do that and deliver punches to Hitler’s face in stereo while leaving the international audience-friendly scenes in this film sterilized of swastikas. Thus, like the Super Nintendo version of “Wolfenstein 3D” before it, “The First Avenger” told a hard-hitting WWII tale without Nazi flags and depicted massive pre-V-Day combat in Europe without any sign of the SS within miles.

Instead, the Red Skull’s (Hugo Weaving) forces act as stand-ins for the Nazis, breaking ranks from Hitler’s Third Reich and going rogue so that they can take over the world.

Yes, the story beats are predictable. Yes, there is a final video-game-plot-ready boss level (so to speak) at the end, and yes, a national hero injects himself with strength-boosting chemicals in order to physically perform better in combat without suffering any of the side effects that professional baseball players and wrestlers experience when they engage in similar practices.

If you can get beyond this awkward plot point (does Isaiah Bradley exist in this universe?), which is a long-standing part of the Captain America origin story, “The First Avenger” is a fine family film. It also does an impressive job of visualizing the WWII era with Cosmic Cube-powered technology without making any of the scenes feel like they’re taking place in the future. When Captain America (Chris Evans) awakens in the present, you really begin to understand how well Johnston and his team really did in this respect.

I’ve written before about my problems with past Marvel film endings, where huge, abstractly conceived villains gain vast amounts of power out of nowhere, yell incoherent, cheaply written things very loud, and then proceed to get robbed of their power like the Wizard of Oz being discovered behind his curtain. To Johnston’s credit once again, “The First Avenger” avoids this pitfall.

The film does, however, alter Cap’s fate slightly. In the comics, he was disarming a bomb; in the movie, he finds himself (SORRY, SPOILER HERE FOR THE REST OF THE PARAGRAH) onboard a bomb-loaded plane bound for the U.S. and decides that he has to crash it. The plane doesn’t seem to explode when it nose-dives into the ice, which makes me question: Why couldn’t he have attempted a water landing or hard landing in rural Greenland or something? Perhaps he just didn’t receive pilot training, or maybe the Red Skull mentioned something off-screen about having only sabotaged the plane’s ability to turn left and right. Whatever the case may be, a few extra seconds of dialogue would have gone a long way in explaining why Cap decided that his only option was to do a nose dive. It kind of the Bear Grylls meme where he sees that the sun is setting and decides that he has to drink his own urine. Sometimes extreme action is necessary, but was it really the only choice in this case?

Forced though it may be, the action does get our hero to where and when he needs to be for the setup leading to Joss Whedon’s “Avengers” movie. It’s funny, because until after the credits roll (SPOILER AGAIN HERE) you would never know that there had been a “Thor” movie tied into “The First Avenger,” save one quick reference to the Cosmic Cube when the Red Skull is pulling it out of its resting place.

Casting-wise, the film has a lot to be proud of. There are certainly no January Jones-caliber performances this time around. Chris Evans does exactly what he needs to, and so does the anatomy-altering CGI that gets used to may him seem scrawnier prior to his procedure. Hugo Weaving sounds eerily like Christopher Waltz from “Inglourious Basterds” at times, but it words for the role.

All in all, Johnston lands the film on its feet with an powerful jolt at the end, and Whedon now has an accessible, yet worthy bar of quality to shoot for when “The Avengers” arrives in 2012.

Playing Through: ‘Infinity Blade’

Posted by Brian Warmoth – June 28, 2011

A long, long time ago, in December 2010 in fact, Chair Entertainment released “Infinity Blade” out into the wild, and using the Unreal Engine 3 set a new standard for elaborate graphics in games on iOS platforms. It turned out to be more than just another pretty game, too, as Chair’s updates and trickled-out weapons and upgrades to the game went on to show. “Infinity Blade” checks off a number of boxes that you would imagine to be on production, marketing, and sales professionals’ checklists; it’s got in-games purchases. there’s now Facebook character sharing, etc. etc.

The menu screen always had a “Coming Soon” message, however, promising arena and multiplayer options that recently arrived, and those implementations make “Infinity Blade” as ripe as it ever has been for a review.

The game mashes up third-person, “Punch-Out!!”-style fighting with sword-and-mace weapons combat set in dark, fantasy realm that could have been swiped straight out of a Frank Frazetta painting, the real story behind everything gets heavily glossed over in order to provide a few shock moments when you beat the God King or come face to face with history down in the castle’s basement. I won’t spoil the endings if you haven’t seen them yourselves, but they’re filled with extra doses of Medieval gibberish, and employ plot twists that ensure you will keep fighting forever (as long as you keep the game installed on your i-device).

Despite numerous updates, “Infinity Blade” has seen more than its fair share of single player mode bugs. Although a recent fix mended a problem I experienced on my first-gen iPad where my character would constantly open up empty chests, the game still suffers from constant crashing and subsequent crashes upon restarting from the iOS home screen. Additionally, the last update introduced a problem I’d never experienced before where after earning points from a weapon mastery nothing on the upgrade screen is selectable and the only option is close the app and restart. This occurs regularly and still routinely cuts my play sessions short. (Maybe its a product feature urging me to use my time more productively.) More→

Review: ‘X-Men: First Class’ (2011)

Posted by Brian Warmoth – June 17, 2011

“X-Men: First Class” seemed like it could be the odd one out as 20th Century Fox’s entry on an ambitious slate of Marvel Comics-based movies this year. Director Matthew Vaughn turned the clock back to 1962 make an origin story/period piece, that may or may not be in continuity with previous X-films. (Indeed, I’ll be perfectly content to see “X-Men: The Last Stand” never be in continuity with anything ever again.) In the end, he assembled the most visually inspired and overall cohesive film of the franchise.

Vaughn obviously took some notes on previous efforts. Several performances and awkward moments could have used polishing. But this film has heart. Ta-Nahesi Coates said it well in his New York Times op-ed when called the film “incredible work of American historical fiction” and noted its importance amid real-world attempts to sterilize history of its less convenient complexities, and it seems like the kind of film that would make for a great pivot for talking to kids about what happened in the U.S. during the 1960s.

The vintage set designs, archive footage and costumes all came together spectacularly to make many of the scenes look like they could have been taking place during a Sean Connery-era Bond film. Vaughn successfully captured much of the magic that made Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original “Uncanny X-Men” comics work, and he managed to pull that off with an almost completely different cast of mutants.

As far as the casting goes, James McAvoy rightfully stood out from the pack as a young, hairy Professor Charles Xavier. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for January Jones as Emma Frost, who proved to be a major letdown. I write this as a dedicated “Mad Men” watcher, but Jones’ entire performance in “First Class” failed to flip a switch to take her out of Betty Draper-in-a-malaise mode and tint her with any malevolence whatsoever.

Previous X-films fell into the trap of divvying up screen-time far too equally among their stars, and “First Class” took advantage of its relatively lesser known set of faces. Although Riptide (played by Álex González) and Azazel (Jason Flemyng) became nothing more than personality-less henchmen set pieces, the movie overall turned into a fine ensemble piece, with Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) and Nicholas Hoult (Beast) all delivering exactly what they needed to.

As far as the blemishes go, there was a really odd scene worth noting toward the end (SPOILER ALERT) where Xavier suffers his fatal paralyzing injury at the hands of a stray bullet. Perhaps Magneto was only deflecting the bullets; alternatively, he may have been randomly redirecting them. Whatever the case may be, the bullet nearly flattened, either by hitting the Magnetic force field or by striking Xavier, and traveled along an odd curve to get to Xavier’s spine. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be a product of some poor planning, and by the time the CGI inserted the bullets it was too late to re-shoot, but the whole scenario raised about as many questions as the physics behind the generally accepted story behind the JFK assassination.

I halfway expected a post-credits scene to show up where it turned out that Bishop or Deadpool or someone was hiding in a grassy knoll on the island during the final battle. That brings me to a couple of other points, though, in that there was no post-credits scene attached to the end of this film. That didn’t detract from what was in it, and it’s almost certainly indicative of a lack of planning for a future installment. Nevertheless, that and Stan Lee’s absentee cameo were missed.

So in the end, “First Class” did feel like the odd Marvel film out in 2011. That didn’t turn out to be a bad thing though. It was leaps and bounds above either of the modern Fantastic Four movies, and didn’t try to live by the rules and looks that have defined the Iron Man and X-Men releases that came before it. And for that, Vaughn deserves quite a bit of respect.