Thor: Ragnarok to me felt more like a Guardians of the Galaxy movie than a Thor film, with the emphasis on comedy, colorful visual palette, wacky alien races and classic rock & roll kicking in during the action scenes. It was very enjoyable and well made, but you could definitely feel the influence of James Gunn's movies. The only times where I was really bothered was when the film did not allow some of the heavier moments to sink in before moving on to another joke. Thor lost friends, family, Mjolnir, body parts and his home - but seemed to keep yukking it up the whole way through.
While I enjoyed the movie greatly I was surprised to see the god of thunder going full on stand-up comedy,not the intense humor he's well suited for.
ReplyDeleteYou know, if DC were to revive the Composite Superman, today, most Millenials would probably think he was a Kryptonianized Two-Face.
ReplyDelete@ Cary Comic
ReplyDeleteProbably. More's the pity.
Speaking of which. I always loved the concept of the Composite Superman but loathed the costume and to a lesser extent the name.
Where does the Batman element come in at all? And shouldn't he be the Composite Legionnaire? Although something simple like Legion would've been preferable.
I just saw Thor: Ragnarok last week, and I agree with you 95%, Ross. Some of the humor did seem to fit well, but when it moved into straight-on comedy -- especially interrupting heavy moments -- it failed. GotG2 was filled with such bathos, and it almost (but not quite) spoiled that movie for me. Fortunately, T:R stopped doing that about halfway through, so the really meaningful moments near the end still carried meaning.
ReplyDelete(To give an example that worked: in the opening scene, where Surtur is gloating over Thor, the Thunder God's interruptions were appropriate -- he was subtly mocking Surtur -- though the joke with the hammer wasn't, or at best was poorly handled. Another good moment was Skurge's redemption; the humor there actually helped the moment rather than detracted from it.)
Alena - I think there's a Marvel character named Legion. I'm not sure, though, and I'm not sure that the name is Trademarked, but it could be a problem these days.
Yes, there's a Marvel character named Legion (part of the X-family), and he even has his own TV show on FX. Which is one of the reasons you can hear the capitalized 'T' whenever 'The Legion' is mentioned on Supergirl. And Composite Superman started out as a one-off bad guy for Bats and Supes (way back when 'World's Finest' featured only S&B team-ups) and whenever writers get desperate he pops back up again.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm not sure where the crucified Thor came from but the Composite Superman's origin come from World's Finest Comics #142 June 1964. He was a janitor who deep down disliked the Superman/Batman team, he had been struck by lightning in front of some statuettes of the Legion of Super-Heroes thus gaining all the powers of the Legion and intern making his costume half and half he goes on a berserk rage against the world's finest team.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember the World's Finest story (#217) in which Metamorpho temporarily gained the powers of Superman and Batman as well as his own and wore a similar half-Superamn/half-Batman costume? (The Superman and
ReplyDeleteBatman halves were reversed.)
This was among the third superhero comics I ever purchased.
@SOJ: As a matter of fact, yeah! I think it was entitled "Super Freak."
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody else remember the Superman/Batman robot that the teenage Toyman built for the heroes during the 'Superman/Batman. Public Enemies' storyline, to destroy a massive Kryptonite meteor that was threatening Earth (and that turned out to contain Supergirl's ship)?
ReplyDeleteBatman: "Will it work?"
Toyman: "Does Power Girl have big...?"
Paul Schilling-I think the Thor image is from the '80's graphic novel "Whom the Gods would destroy", but Ross could verify.
ReplyDeleteCorrect.
ReplyDelete