Gears of War #1

Man do I love Gears of War. I love the cheesy sci-fi story that loosely resembles the general plot of Starship Troopers and all of the gratuitous blood and gore. Hell, I'll admit it, I also just liked shooting people and being a beefy soldier kicking ass all over.

So when I read about the Gears of War comic from Wildstorm I was insanely excited. Here is a game that took up a few months of my life and I still want to pop it in the 360 occasionally and frag some Horde members. Imagine my surprise when I read the comic and it just didn't do it for me.

I know it had been a bit since I've played Gears last, but the terminology was suddenly lost on me and while it didn't lack in the guts and gore department there was something a bit more thrilling about shooting someones head off then reading about it happening.

But with Joshua Ortega writing the current comic and the script for Gears of War 2 I can see this tying into the video game eventually (I've read that the first arc will bridge the gap between the two games, we'll see.) and fleshing out the rest of the Gears world. After all this is a man who's written prequels to Star Wars Kotor (His story in Star wars Tale #23 served as a prequel for the KOTOR video game) and the recent top selling "Frank Frazzeta's Death Dealer" mini, both were great stories that lead me to trust him with my Gears.

If that isn't enough you have the incredibly hectic art work Liam Sharp. You remember Liam Sharp, he's recently done pencil work for Dc/Vertigo's Testament and The barely read Countdown tie-in "Lord Havok & the Extremists". His frenzied style of art will definitely lend to the chaotic stories of war that take place in the Gears universe.

Although I must admit that the first issue of this series did give me a bit of a scare, I'm the type of reader that allows a slow start in a series. After a few issues of going no where...then I start to worry, but with the creative team or Ortega and Sharp I'm not really worried at all.

M Night Shyamalan's The Happening and one other crappy movie

*ALERT ALERT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS*

The other night I rented The Happening and Pathology on DVD; two movies that held the only expectation of me being drunk by the end of the night. So I called up my buddy James and we opened up a beer (Magic Hat for me #9 is my Fav right now) and popped in Pathology.

I don't even know if i should waste anytime writing about Pathology. This Milo Ventimiglia helmed "thriller" was just horrible and made absolutely no sense. This was obviously Ventimiglia's break out of the good guy movie and all it did was make him look like a douche.

Milo plays a young med student who goes to some big town and gets involved with a bunch of peers with God complexes. They each take turns murdering people in creative ways and have then everyone else has to figure out how. It sounds good in theory, but when you throw in the fact that their crack smoking, beer drinking students who love to have sex while their chopping up corpses and do all sorts of deviant acts it makes it horrible. I can't sugar coat it, it was horrible.

Even Alyssa Milano could not save this mess as Ventimiglia's love interest, mainly cause he was spending his time diddeling one of his partners in crimes fiance on morgue slabs next to corpses.

See, it was just a horrible movie. Don't rent it, I've wasted too much time on it already.

NEXT!

The Happening opens at a busy foliage filled park during the middle of a beautiful day. All of a sudden people start dropping dead either by their own hand or reasons unknown. A young woman stabs herself in the neck with a knitting needle as she tries to recall where she left off in a book. Shocking.

The city is evacuated to smaller towns surrounded by bushes and big trees and expansive lawns, but still people keep dying. Now they're acting out and killing themselves all over. People are hanging themselves from trees or running themselves over with lawnmowers; it's horrible. It's scary. It's SHOCKING, until a hippie couple who owns a nursery brings up to male lead Marky Mark how plants can quickly evolve and adapt lethal defense mechanisms. Did I mention that Marky Mark plays a high school science teacher?

Suddenly, while walking through a huge field of wheat surronded by trees and other plants as far as the eye can see, a huge crop of people start to off themselves (including the hippie botanists) and Marky Mark brings up the plant idea. Everyone seems to like it so he steals the dead hippies ideas and becomes the savior of the movie. Good job Marky mark.

I can't help but feel M Night Shyamalan is trying to teach us a lesson with his latest faux shocker, The Happening; Trust in Science and Save the Planet or it's going to come back and bite us in the ass one day. Those are two great points that are brought up to us everyday by Al Gore, but when you package a great message with Shyamalan's cliched writing and sloppy directing it's something I would expect from the Sci-Fi network, not the director of 6th Sense and Unbreakable.

Wait? I'm just realizing something. Out of Shyamalan's 6 movies where he's done all the work I only liked two of them and they were the first two he made. Why oh why do I keep watching his work. I can only think of one reason, his movies are gratuitus, over the top shit.

That's right, walking into any of his movies you can always expect to be watching M. Night Shyamalan stroking his own ego with obvious plot twists and crazy characters that would never adorn any other movie but his own. Sadly, he seems to see these as original ground breaking ideas that will surprise us and hopefuly teach us each a lesson. A modern day fable.

What draws The Happening down even further is the casting. Mark Whalberg plays a pussy whipped high school science teacher who's BFF with John Leguizamo number puzzle spouting math teacher. Marky Mark's idea of playing the "sensitive" high school teacher reminds me more of Stewart from MadTV than a brainy science teacher come to save the day. And Lequizamo, while I never really liked him anyways.

If it wasn't for the every quirky Zooey Deschanel and a VERY interesting Betty Buckley bit part near the end of the movie I owuld say leave this one on the shelf, but you just can't. Go out and get it and experince the shocking horror that is M Night Shyamalan for yourself.

The Stand: Captain Trips

We have found something special in Marvel's recent dive into the world of Stephen King, writers and artists who can take someone's work and expand on it without destroying the original.

It's really hard to believe I know, but after two successful Dark Tower Mini Series Marvel Comics has ventured into another one of King's interlocking series, The Stand. Yes, The Stand has been adapted into a comic and Marvel has picked a wonderful creative team to helm this apocalyptic adventure.

The secret to this tightly weaved adaptation is Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Sensational Spider-Man; Dead of Night Featuring Man-Thing) get's what King was doing when he wrote the book. He was a major Stephen King fan when he was younger and devoured The Stand when it hit shelves back in the day, so he understands the dogged, end of the world, shit in your face attitude spun out of the author's opus .

The best thing though is that Mike Perkins (Captain America; House of M: Avengers) knows what King was envisioning when The Stand was written. If you think that Agguire-Sacasa writing has King pegged you should take a gander at Perkins gritty stylistic art has said that Perkins artwork has reflected closely how he imagined the characters and I second that opinion; after reading the second issue I feel the comic is better cast then the mediocre ABC Mini Series.

I never really bought Molly Ringwald as the pregnant Frannie Goldsmith, Rob Lowe as the mute Nick Andros and while I enjoyed Laura San Giacomo in Just Shoot Me the role of crazy Nadine just didn't fit her, but when Perkins lets his pen flow I finally see faces the that I imagined; something that I thought I would never see.

So yes peoples, I think that you should run out to your local comic book shop and pick up this kickin' adaptation of The Stand. Not only is the story telling spot on, you've got plenty of gritty illustration that capture Stepehen King's vision perfectly.