This is Entry 263: Brian on the Aisle #13

Welcome to another installment of the infrequent series called Brian on Aisle where I "review" movies that I've seen & want to talk a little bit about.

Today movie is The Avengers. Now why am I talking about it now & not 5 months ago like everyone else was? Well... I hadn't see it yet. I just saw the movie for the 1st time today. What took me so long? I was waiting.

Waiting for it to come to the theater a few blocks from my house where you can see movies for 3 dollars. Also, I made a promise to my Mother to see it with her. She's not really into comics or anything she just wanted to see the movie. So... I waited the time it came to my local theater to see it with her.

It came so we went (along with my father) to see the movie. Before I get to my "review" of the movie I'll say this it's no way a full review of the movie just my feelings & there might be spoilers if you haven't seen the movie yet. But I think the movie came out 5 months ago so the movie has already been spoiled awhile ago but I just thought I'd put that warning out there.

Now... what did I think of it?

Well... It was good. Not great. I liked Captain America: The First Avenger & Thor better. The movie started out slow, lagged through the first half of the movie & then ramped it up for an action packed 2nd half. Not really sure who or what the alien army was. I didn't recognize the name of the race, they might of been from the comics but I didn't know who they were. They kind of reminded me of zombies & just seemed to be to be fought. No real character to them.

Another thing: It's not the Tesseract, It's the Cosmic Cube! That's what the comics call it & that's what I call it. Sure, it sounds a bit hokey but all of stuff in comics sounds hokey.

The Hellicarrier looked cool!  The Hulk looked really good, probably the best he's looked in any of his recent movies appearances.  The humor was good. Many of the jokes got be laughs from the crowd. The Death of Coulson was sad (I knew it was coming but it was still sad). I quite liked Thor's "casual" look, the sans cape look. Sort of felt like the cape was pointless. Wasn't a big fan of the Mask of Cap's costume. Something just seemed a bit off about it. I'd see the sequel to see what they did with the Mad Titan Thanos & how they represent his "girlfriend".

What do I give the movie? 3 Avenges out of 5.

The theater is also playing the Spider-Man so I'll probably try to see that. Look for that "review" soon.

Until then Stay Jazzy everyone!

- Brian

This is Entry 262: To Return or to Not Return?

That is my question at the moment. Now you maybe asking: return to what? Comic Books. This year was the first time in a half dozen years I had to give up reading/buying Comic Books due to lack of funds. And soon I can return to them, but do I want to?

Some backstory: I have been unemployed for about a year or so & was using some my savings to buy stuff (like Comic Books). But then I had some massive bills come my way which need paying off. That's where most of my saving had gone to & after the bills were paid off I was left with a very small amount of money. I had to make a choice. I cut myself off & went "cold turkey" on Comic Books. It's been 6 months since I've regularly bought comics & I have now found a part time job. This means that I will start to have money coming in. So... that would means that I could start buying comics once more, right?

Yeah. I guess so. I'm just not sure. There were a number of books I was reading before I cut myself off. The books I was reading were: 5 Marvel books (Fantastic Four, FF, The Defenders, Avengers Academy, Wolverine and the X-Men) & 6 DC books (Demon Knights, The Flash, Justice League Dark, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Suicide Squad).

All these books have continued to put out issues over the last 6 months (In the case of Avengers Academy sometimes 2 issues a month). At about 3 dollars an issue that about 20 dollars per comic & about 200 dollars for all 11 books. That's a hefty chunk of change right there! I'm not sure I want to pay for all that. That is if I can find all the "back issues" for the comic, the store I go to might be out of a certain issue & then I'd have to search out other stores for that missing issue.

And Marvel soon to be going through their Marvel Now! thing which means a few books are being cancelled/reworked/rebooted/redone. 3 of the books that I was reading is part of that change over (1 is being cancelled & 2 are changing). There are a few of the Marvel Now! titles that do sound interesting that I'd probably check out an issue or two of.

I was looking over the books I had been reading and thinking about which ones to return to & which ones not to return to. Most of the ones I've pretty much decided to not return to have have been DC books (Those are Demon Knights, Justice League Dark & Suicide Squad). They were books that I was only partly enjoying & might of dropped by now if I had continued to read the book. That brought the total of 6 DC books I'd be reading down to 3. SIDE NOTE: When the "New 52" I started out, I was reading 15 books & the number has shrunk either due to the book being cancelled or a I lost interest in the book. There is 1 or 2 books that have come out in the last 6 months that I might like to add (I'd maybe like to add Earth 2 & Worlds' Finest they look like they might be interesting).

I've thought about just waiting for the trade paperback/collected edition of these books. Most of the Trades are about 6 issues long. It would be about the same price & I wouldn't have to worry about not missing an issue but I'm not sure I want to wait that long.

So... yeah. I still have my question: to return or to not return?

My answer is most likely that I will return. It just won't be like how it was before. They have moved on without me.

Until next time: Stay Jazzy everyone!

- Brian