Category: Kumar’s reviews

#838 The Fantastic Four on Film: The Galactus Trilogy

FF 50 cover

One of the most famous Fantastic Four stories is the “Galactus Trilogy” from Fantastic Four 48-50 in 1966. This story has been adopted more than once, including in the 1990s FF cartoon, and in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Leading into our discussion of that movie next week, this week Tim, Kumar, and Jordan, in another crossover with the Comic Book Movie Oblivion podcast, look at the original comics story. While it’s been quite lauded, and very influential, why can it also be considered flawed?

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#836 “Clyde Fans” reviewed by two fans

Clyde Fans

In Clyde Fans by Seth, two brothers run a fan company for fifty years. One might expect it to be prosaic, but instead it’s an immersive and epic exploration of the sense and meaning of life, every life, even when it’s not apparent on the surface. Kumar and Dana ask the big questions.

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#831 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Fantastic Four” (2005) pt 2: What does Doom want?!

FF 2005 pt 2

While the 2005 film Fantastic Four gives us, debatably, a well-casted group of heroes, with plenty of comics-accurate details, the script does no favors to Dr. Doom. What are his goals, other than “taking everything back” from Reed? Why is he a CEO instead of a despot? Who the heck gives a frightening metal mask as a thank-you gift?? This time, Tim, Kumar, and Jordan (in a crossover with the Comic Book Movie Oblivion podcast) conclude their look at this film, and cap it off with a review of its endless development process.

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#830 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Fantastic Four” (2005) pt 1: “I am hot, and I’m not afraid to cry”

Fantastic Four 2005

After the fiasco of the 1994 unreleased Fantastic Four movie, development proceeded on a big-budget FF film, which finally hit theaters in 2005 — a better film than the ’94 attempt in some ways, but frustratingly as bad or worse in others. This week, in another crossover with the Comic Book Movie Oblivion podcast, Tim is joined by Kumar and Jordan to begin a two-part look at this film (as well as a few 1980s FF comics).

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#827 “Cross Game” Omnibus 2: Subtle Shifts

Cross Game v2

The second omnibus volume of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game focuses largely on a scrimmage between the varsity team and the “portables”, which doesn’t go how anyone expects it to. Things are shifting subtly under the surface; we’re pretty sure what the series is leading up to (it’s a baseball manga, after all), but it’s fun to watch it develop. And of course, it never lets us forget vol. 1’s tragedy, even as Adachi hits us with goofy jokes. Tim and Kumar brush up on their baseball terms as they go through this volume.

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#822 The Fantastic Four on Film: “The Fantastic Four” (1994) (part two) Why wasn’t the film released?

The 1994 film The Fantastic Four seems to have been made with the expectation, at least from producer Roger Corman on down, that it would be released. While some interested parties have claimed that it was only made to help Constantin Film’s Bernd Eichinger keep his option to make an FF film from expiring, others say that someone stepped in to kill it after the film was made. In part two of our FF ’94 crossover with Comic Book Movie Oblivion, Tim, Kumar, and Jordan finish walking through the film itself, and then explore the possible reasons why it never hit your local multiplex.

Watch the film on YouTube

Watch Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four on YouTube

Read the 2005 Los Angeles magazine article “Fantastic Faux”

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#821 The Fantastic Four on Film: “The Fantastic Four” (1994), a Roger Corman production (part one)

Fantastic Four - Corman 1

By the early ’90s, Superman and Batman were blockbuster movie franchises, but Marvel had yet to find a way to get a big-budget film made based on their characters, let alone succeed at the box office. Bernd Eichinger of Constantin Film owned the film rights to the Fantastic Four, but those rights were soon to expire. So he teamed up with B-movie producer Roger Corman to bang out an FF film — which, for somewhat unclear reasons, never came out. This week, in a crossover with the Comic Book Movie Oblivion podcast, Tim is joined by Kumar and Jordan; some early FF comics are evaluated, and then we begin a two-part discussion of the film, what’s good and bad about it, and the (apparent) reasons it never hit screens.

Watch the film on YouTube

Watch Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four on YouTube

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#819 We catch up with “The Re-up” and “Amazing Tales”

The Re-up/Amazing Tales

This week we catch up with the work of two DCP favorites, Chad Bilyeu and David Dye! Chad’s series The Re-up, about his time as a pot dealer 20 years ago, continues and has overcome the skepticism Tim had of the series at the start. David has released three more issues of Amazing Tales and gone in various directions: a Beowulf adaptation, a Burroughs-esque time travel story commenting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and an EC-type horror comic! We review The Re-up issues 4-6 and Amazing Tales issues 6-8!

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#134 “The R. Crumb Handbook”

Crumb HandbookFLASHBACK! A then-recent R. Crumb compilation is reviewed by a Crumb connoisseur (Kumar) and a Crumb newbie (Tim). The book features Crumb at his sweetest and his most shocking. But can this (or any book) claim to be the perfect Crumb compilation? (Originally published June 30, 2008.)

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#591 “Promethea”: A mind-bending, life-changing comic

PrometheaFLASHBACK! While Alan Moore and J.H. Williams’ Promethea, published from 1999 to 2005, is not one of Moore’s most remembered works, it’s not because the author wasn’t at the top of his game. Kumar and Emmet find it to be entrancing, even if you don’t buy into the various magical and spiritual elements that Moore built into it.

Also, inevitably, the incorporation of Promethea and other Moore creations into the DC Universe comes up; is it really just a business decision, or is the publisher singling out Moore’s work out of spite? (Originally published April 30, 2018.)

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