Comic Book TV & Films 2024

[Daniel Bryan]

I still enjoy it, but The Boys not getting the job done in the last episode of Season 3 definitely felt like a plot contrivance introduced solely because if they did win then there'd be no more show. Probably best to finish it in a satisfying way before every season ends with Butcher shaking his fist at an escaping Homelander and swearing to get him next time.

[GhostMachine]

I watched Madame Web on Netflix a few days ago and let it stew in my brain before deciding to talk about it. 

I really do get why people didn't like it and why Dakota shit all over it, more or less.

First of all, the casting. Dakota is cute as hell, but the character is elderly in comics. Or was, last time I read any with her in them. Jamie Lee Curtis would have been a good casting if they wanted to be true to the comics.

The other girls only appear as superheroes in flash forward visions, with no explanations of how they go powers and aren't given names. The trailer was misleading in that regard.

Can't use Spider-Man, but they turned Ezekiel, a villain who has kicked Spider-Man's ass quite easily, into an evil Spider-Man with venom (NOT Venom!) powers instead of webbing. And he brought about his own downfall, because they would likely have never known about him if he hadn't gone after them in the first place. (Put this in the `the bad guy is dumb' category.)

Madame Web doesn't even end up blind until the final fight, and the way her precog is handled in confusing and irritating. Sucks watching a scene unfold, only to snap back to her way before the scene actually occurs. 

I gave the movie a C-, and that's only because I'm giving it a bonus due to Dakota. Otherwise it would be a hard D. 

Edited June 14 by GhostMachine

[Benjamin]

Man, the second episode of the Boys season 4 is a SLOG. 

[GoGo Yubari]

I'm getting the feeling from The Boys that it's one of those shows where I've actually gotten all I'm gonna get with it and maybe it's time for me to bail before I get sick of it.

[Benji]

I'm waiting for the season to be complete, it is absolutely not a show I can watch week on week.

[Razohiro Ishii]

Episode 4 of The Boys was a return to the form of the earlier seasons after a pretty week start, comparatively, to this one. If Antony Starr deserves awards for his performance.

[GuyIncognito]

Haven't started the new series of The Boys yet, do I need to have watched Gen V beforehand? Or is that completely standalone? 

[Gabriel]

4 hours ago, GuyIncognito said:

Haven't started the new series of The Boys yet, do I need to have watched Gen V beforehand? Or is that completely standalone? 

I suggest watching Gen V first, because it was actually quite good. There are some references to Gen V, but nothing that I feel like would heavily impact whether or not you enjoy the new season of the Boys. So, if you're just not interested in Gen V, you can go ahead and skip it.

[GoGo Yubari]

4 hours ago, GuyIncognito said:

Haven't started the new series of The Boys yet, do I need to have watched Gen V beforehand? Or is that completely standalone? 

Definitely not standalone, I watched the trailer for this season of The Boys and it mentions a pretty major thing from Gen V but I have no idea how important to the plot it is or how well they integrate that in. I would guess it's "if you didn't watch this that's fine but if you did you'll appreciate this thing/character/etc. showing up more" level?

[Ruki]

18 minutes ago, GoGo Yubari said:

Definitely not standalone, I watched the trailer for this season of The Boys and it mentions a pretty major thing from Gen V but I have no idea how important to the plot it is or how well they integrate that in. I would guess it's "if you didn't watch this that's fine but if you did you'll appreciate this thing/character/etc. showing up more" level?

Correct. If you didn't watch Gen V then the big takeaway from that (and a major plot point this season for Butcher) is...

Spoiler

They developed a virus that only affects supes and kills them dead.

Other than that, there was a minor cameo of two characters. 

I am enjoying the season myself, but I am not used to watching it week to week, I want more. 

[GuyIncognito]

Cheers guys, I've barely read actual comic books but have read The Boys stuff with the G-Men so will check that out then before cracking on with Series 4

 

[Chris2K]

I'm still just about enjoying The Boys, but...

Spoiler

It really feels like they're doing the most depraved stuff possible just for shock value, and the actual plot is now a secondary concern.

And Eric Kripke openly saying that he and the writers found the scenes of Hughie getting sexually assaulted "hilarious" doesn't help matters.

 

[Ruki]

Strong ending to The Boys. I'm ready for the final season! I imagine it won't be until 2026 though. Not sure why IGN gave it a 6/10 (I might just be easily entertained).

[Krabby]

On 19/07/2024 at 02:48, Ruki said:

Strong ending to The Boys. I'm ready for the final season! I imagine it won't be until 2026 though. Not sure why IGN gave it a 6/10 (I might just be easily entertained).

I just finished this season up last night and thought Season Four was really strong, really good. The ending was well done and made for some great twists/surprises (I've not read the comic or anything, just have watched the show). Reallllllly super excited for the final season as well!!!

[Chris2K]

The final episode was good, although it should be noted;

Spoiler

Hughie was sexually assaulted again, this time by the doppelganger pretending to be Annie, but somehow is made out to be the bad guy in the situation.

Overall I found the majority of the plot in the season to go pretty much nowhere, to the point where the start of the final episode felt like it may as well have carried on directly from the finale of season 3, and the episodes mainly filled with whatever crazy or depraved stuff they could think of with little to no relevance to the narrative. 

[Krabby]

1 hour ago, Chris2K said:

The final episode was good, although it should be noted;

  Reveal hidden contents

Hughie was sexually assaulted again, this time by the doppelganger pretending to be Annie, but somehow is made out to be the bad guy in the situation.

Overall I found the majority of the plot in the season to go pretty much nowhere, to the point where the start of the final episode felt like it may as well have carried on directly from the finale of season 3, and the episodes mainly filled with whatever crazy or depraved stuff they could think of with little to no relevance to the narrative. 

I think overall I would agree purely on the speed of the story's narrative but I think, for me, the focus of this season was really on all of the character development that took place with a lot of the big main characters. 

[Szumi]

1 hour ago, Chris2K said:

The final episode was good, although it should be noted;

  Hide contents

Hughie was sexually assaulted again, this time by the doppelganger pretending to be Annie, but somehow is made out to be the bad guy in the situation.

Overall I found the majority of the plot in the season to go pretty much nowhere, to the point where the start of the final episode felt like it may as well have carried on directly from the finale of season 3, and the episodes mainly filled with whatever crazy or depraved stuff they could think of with little to no relevance to the narrative. 

Yeah this is a pretty good sentiment to the season. I thought a lot of the early episodes were really boring and went nowhere, and I do think that some of the themes were just way too on the nose, but I think that's also probably an unavoidable issue when the overall plot was so similar to real life events (except for the whole Supes stuff, of course). I'll add some more thoughts in spoilers, just in case. 

Spoiler

A lot of the new characters really didn't connect with me at all. I thought they should've done a lot more with Sister Sage from a character standpoint. While I like the ultimate end game of essentially she did all this absolute chaos just to see if she was smart enough to pull it off, like this is all a game to her, but a lot of the important middle parts were just flat and underdeveloped. Firecracker, I couldn't even tell you what her powers were because they were completely irrelevant to her/character. The out of nowhere arc between her and Starlight was out of left field and forced, and while it was slightly funny that she was making herself sick just to please Homelander - who has no care for her anyways - her somehow knowing about his fascination with lactation/breast feeding/milk made absolutely no sense. Felt like a "well we know it as fans watching the show so the other character must know too."

Even with Frenchie/Kimiko, the ending point was beautiful and amazing and sad, but how we got there was just a complete waste of everyone's time. Colin served little point at all, but then again, all of the Starlighters were pointless and irrelevant.

There was also WAY WAY too much of "fuck Butcher, we're done with him" to "we need Butcher" to again "fuck Butcher". Felt like it happened every single episode. Was just painstakingly bad writing, there.

 

The finale though was arguably the best finale of the entire series. That was amazing stuff once they finally got into it all. Neuman being used as a patsy for Homelander/Sage, her violent death by Butcher's V tumors, everything with Butcher/Ryan/Grace, Starlight finally doing literally anything of value, Kimiko/Frenchie finally being a thing only to immediately have that ending with her speaking, all of The Boys sans Starlight being captured, Ryan shifting back to Homelander's evil clone, a whole bunch of really amazing stuff. 

I am curious about Butcher's situation. I was under the impression he's still dying, and he doesn't really have powers per se, but all those V'ed up tumors do. I've seen others say he has powers and is cured. That was left, intentionally I'm sure, very vague. I was expecting them to have him inject himself with full on Gen V in the finale to cure him, using what happened with Hughie's Dad as the obvious decoy to make people think he'd have the same thing happen to him.

Bring on the last season!

[Szumi]

*insert Archer gif that my penis can only get so erect here* 

 

 

[Ruki]

Final season of Umbrella Academy felt like a bit of a miss. It felt like it was missing an entire act, and at the same time characters just spun their wheels for episodes at a time before lazily all coming together at the end.

[Razohiro Ishii]

34 minutes ago, Ruki said:

Final season of Umbrella Academy felt like a bit of a miss. It felt like it was missing an entire act, and at the same time characters just spun their wheels for episodes at a time before lazily all coming together at the end.

That's disappointing to hear. Is it right that it is only 6 episodes as well? That sucks. I thought last season was solid, if not spectacular, but I really enjoyed seasons 1 & 2. I was a big fan of Hazel, especially.