The-Defenders

This week instead of an episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ABC aired a special about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe was basically a documentary discussing the process that Marvel Studios went through to create their series of interconnected movies and at the end gave a few teases for upcoming projects. My friends and I, and according to the website Television by the Numbers more than four million other people all tuned in to watch. Four million viewers isn’t going to win any time slots but it was still good enough to give ABC third place for the hour and drew significantly more viewers than the rerun of S.H.I.E.L.D. they aired on February 20th. More interesting to me was the fact that ABC was willing to air it at all. They have enough faith in the popularity of comic book entertainment that they were willing to air a documentary primarily about movies that people have already seen during primetime. If that isn’t a sign that we are living in a new golden age for comic fans I don’t know what is. However, unlike the Golden Age of Comic Books this new golden age is on the big and small screen. In honor of this new era of superhero entertainment I thought I’d take a look at the current and upcoming live action superhero movies and tv shows from both Marvel and DC.

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“180” caption=“Seriously, this comic has some awesomely gross art.”] [/caption] The Defenders #2 - Remains the funniest mainstream book I’ve been regularly keeping up with. Lots of fun. X-23 #20 - I thought this was the last issue, but apparently it’s the penultimate. Pretty good friendship issue between Laura and Jubilee. It was an absolute joy to have Phil Noto back. Irredeemable #33 - The crossover event continues. What a stupid-crazy last page! I almost don’t like it because of how out of left field it was. It’s gonna mean neat things for the story. ...

[caption id=“attachment_403” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1”] [/caption] It was a heavily X-Men week for me this week. Some great issues and some OK issues. All links go to Comic Vine. X-Men Vol 3 #23 - The end of the Sentinels in Eastern Europe arc. Good, but not great. Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1 - Quentin once again causes issues at a Mutant School. This time he takes on Wolverine directly. I’m curious to see where it goes. The Defenders Vol 4 #2 - Matt Fraction continues to weave a crazy story here Huntress Vol 3 #4 - Things in this usually awesome mini-series took a turn for the worse. Hopefully it recovers Avengers: X-Sanction #2 - More Action! More Cable! Uncanny X-Force #19.1 - Really just an intro to a new Age of Apocalypse book that Marvel’s launching this year X-23 Vol 2 #20 - An awesome penultimate book in this series [caption id=“attachment_404” align=“alignright” width=“195” caption=“Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #4”] [/caption] ...

[caption id=“attachment_303” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“The Defenders #1”] [/caption] Eric’s Book: Eric: For this week’s Comic POW! I’ve decided to go with one of Marvel’s new titles, The Defenders Dan: I’ve been pretty excited about this book myself thanks to the work its writer, Matt Fraction, did on Casanova. Eric: I was excited by the idea and the Marvel hype that it would look at some of the key foundations of the Marvel Universe. That type of stuff is always fun to me. Now this book, or at least this arc, is a continuation of events set into place by Fear Itself. I largely ignored Fear Itself because I don’t have infinite money and it only seemed to tangentially affect the books I follow, but I DID read Marvel’s one-shot a few weeks ago that previewed 2012 stuff and it had a prologue to this story. Actually, I think it had two prologues. I remember reading a story that described what’s going on with Hulk as well as a story that described Dr. Strange’s friend who he mentions on the fifth page of content. The Hulk prologue explained that this black creature you see on the second page is the result of some Fear Itself mystical-ness that represents the rage that even Hulk has been able to contain. ...