Nerd in the 'Noke

Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 1 - Chinatown - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #1-5, and material from All-New, All-Different Point One (2015) #1. Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 2 - Supersonic - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #6-9, and Annual #1. Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 3 - Dark Art - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #10-14. Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 4 - Identity - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #15-20. In recent weeks, I've been asked what I think about Charles Soule's current Daredevil run.  My default answer has been that I've enjoyed it.  Unfortunately, being the huge DD fan that I am, that is not only very vague, but it could also easily be interpreted as just a biased opinion.  With the release of the fourth trade paperback volume last week, I felt that this was as good a time as any to re-read the run to this point and to elaborate (as spoiler free as possible of course) as to why I have enjoyed this run as much as I have. Vol. 1-4 (Front Covers) The crea...

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), PG-13, 2h 20min - My apologies, between not getting to this movie until last Sunday, having family in town this weekend, and getting distracted by all of the SDCC news from the last couple of days, I'm just now getting around to working on my review for War for the Planet of the Apes.  War is the final installment of the reboot/prequel trilogy that began with 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes and continued with 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes . Quick disclaimer right up front: as this is the last part of a trilogy, the continuity is tightly tied to the two preceding films.  If you haven't seen those, be sure to make time to watch them first, otherwise the impact of this film will be severely diluted.  Also, as the name implies, there is a good bit of war related violence, particularly involving apes.  If you're an animal lover like my wife, you probably want to steer clear completely.  For everyone else, let'...

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), PG-13, 133 minutes - Spider-Man: Homecoming has been a highly anticipated film ever since Tom Holland's Spider-Man made his Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut in last year's Captain America: Civil War when he burst onto the scene lending a hand to Iron Man's cause.  With this film we're not only getting the first solo Spider-Man film since 2014, but also the second reboot of the character on the big screen (following the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield incarnations).  It also also marks the first co-produced film between Sony and Marvel Studios after their deal to share the character's film rights (take note Fox...cough, cough...Fantastic Four...cough, cough). Peter Parker (Holland) is a sophomore in high school, and actually looks age appropriate this time around.  He and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) are your typical smart kids and social outcasts who participate in things like band and the debate team.  Peter doesn...

Baby Driver (2017), R, 113 minutes - Baby Driver is the latest film from one of my personal favorites, writer/director Edgar Wright.  Most of his previous work has fallen (primarily) into the comedy genre, but with this film he proves that he is more than capable of handling a crime/action flick. Wright gives us the story of Baby (Ansel Elgort), a good kid with amazing skills behind the wheel who has fallen in with the wrong people and now finds himself working off debt as criminal mastermind Doc's (Kevin Spacey) getaway driver of choice.  Doc never uses the same crew twice, but continually relies on Baby as the driver for all of his heists as he has never been caught.  All of Doc's heist crew members have their own eccentricities and Baby is no exception.  He's a music lover and is constantly listening to an iPod in order to drown out the Tinnitus (ringing in his ears) caused by a childhood car accident that killed both of his parents.  He even uses music ...

Okja (2017), TV-MA, 118 minutes - Three years ago (almost to the day), I saw a film by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho called Snowpiercer .  It instantly became one of my favorite films of 2014 and made me go back and watch some of his previous films (which I also enjoyed).  So a couple of days ago, when I discovered that his new film Okja had been released via Netflix earlier in the week, I was extremely eager to see it. This film tells the story of a little Korean girl named Mija (An Seo Hyun) and her pet super pig Okja.  "What on Earth is a super pig?" you ask?  They are a genetically engineered species designed by the Mirando Corporation to be the perfect eco-friendly livestock.  Mija and her grandfather have raised Okja on their mountain-top farm since she was four (it has now been ten years).  What Mija isn't aware of is that Okja was one of twenty six super pigs that Mirando placed in the care of farmers around the globe as part of a co...

Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa - Marvel Graphic Novel (1982) #23 Prior to last fall, I really hadn't read much Doctor Strange (just Roger Stern and Mike Mignola's Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin's Doctor Strange: The Oath, and the recently finished Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo run on the title).  I thoroughly enjoyed all of those, and as more collected material was released leading up to last November's film, I found myself picking up and reading more and more of the Sorcerer Supreme's adventures.  The one story that was always given overwhelming praise was Into Shamballa.  The only problem being that it was an OGN (original graphic novel) from the Marvel Graphic Novel line of the early 1980's that has never been reprinted.  I scoured the web, never feeling comfortable dropping the kind of cash being asked for the available copies I came across.  As a result, Into Shamballa took up residence on the 'in...

Cars 3 (2017), G, 109 minutes - Over the years, Disney/Pixar has proven to be the cream of the crop when it comes to animated films.  While I would argue that Pixar's overall library ranks above-average to excellent, there have been a couple of missteps in recent years.  This film's predecessor, 2011's Cars 2, being one of them.  That film suffered from its attempt at making Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), a wonderful supporting character, into the star of the film. Cars 3 returns Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) to the spotlight, and rights the ship for one of Pixar's most recognizable franchises. Over the years, Lightning McQueen has risen to dominance of the Piston Cup circuit.  More often than not, either he or one of his buddies takes home the checkered flag, with the winner enjoying the spoils, and the others taking pride in playing pranks on the winner.  One day seemingly out of the blue a rookie, Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), takes the field by surprise...

Wonder Woman (2017), PG-13, 141 minutes - Anticipation for this film has steadily increased over the past year, since the world first got a glimpse of Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , an appearance of limited screen time that was arguably the highlight of the film. As superhero films have risen to box office dominance over the last seventeen years, there has not yet been a successful female led superhero film released. That all changed this past weekend with this film directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gadot (reprising her role from Batman v Superman). Wonder Woman is a breath of fresh air for the DCEU (DC Extended Universe) and has already broken box office records. Wonder Woman uses a present day sequence (that loosely ties into existing DCEU continuity) to frame Diana's (Gadot) origin story, which is told via a World War I era flashback.  Diana grows up as an inquisitive, rebellious youth on the secluded, Amazon-inhabited, island ...

Wonder Woman by George Pérez Omnibus Vol. 2 - Collecting Wonder Woman (1987) #25-45, Annual #2 DC picked the perfect time to release the second omnibus volume of George Pérez's classic Wonder Woman run: just a couple weeks before this weekend's release of the live-action Wonder Woman film.  Having recently burned through the first volume , I was eager to continue reading Pérez's tales of Princess Diana of Themyscira's adventures.  Admittedly I had a small concern of the potential for a let down compared to the first volume as I enjoyed it so much.  It only took a handful of issues for me to realize that I had had nothing to worry about. This volume picks up with issue twenty five, the point in the series where Pérez transitioned from writing and penciling to 'just' writing.  To be honest, this is what caused my trepidation in regards to this volume.  The first volume opened my eyes to just how great his artwork can be and I was afraid that this volume m...

Alien: Covenant (2017), R, 122 minutes - With Alien: Covenant, director Ridley Scott gives us the second prequel film to the horror franchise he launched nearly forty years ago.  Covenant takes place ten years after the events of 2012's Prometheus , a rapidly anticipated film, that didn't quite seem to live up to the public's lofty expectations. Covenant opens with a quiet scene that takes place long before the events of Prometheus between Peter Weyland (Guy Pierce) and his newly created synthetic David (Michael Fassbender).  The scene acts as a summary of that film's events (man's search for their creator) as well as a prologue for this film.  We then begin following the Covenant, a colonization vessel on course for Origae-6 carrying a crew of around fourteen members (all couples), two thousand would-be-colonists, over a thousand human embryos, and the latest model Weyland synthetic Walter (also Michael Fassbender).  Their mission is to colonize Origae-6 upon ...