IRON MAN 3 (2013) and the Backwards Appreciation Phenomenon (BAPH)

 

Wednesday, a week ago (Feb 4), my wife and I got to rewatch Iron Man 3.  It was the concluding part of our Trevor Slattery/faux-Mandarin backstory review (in reverse) following our completion of the excellent Wonder Man Disney+ show.  Since I was taking the next day off to visit my mother in my home state, we amazingly finished it in one sitting! (If you're 55+, you may appreciate how rare that can be, which is why I like to still watch movies in theaters where you're forced to see it through without pause.) And I really, really enjoyed it, much more than I remember upon seeing it the first time back in 2013. (Doesn't look like I even blogged about it.)  Well, I'm contributing this increased favorable opinion to BAPH (pronounced "BAFF"), the Backwards Appreciation Phenomenon. 

(Add it to your lexicon folks, you won't find it in Websters...yet.  Because I just coined it as a term, but the concept has been around for decades.)

The Conquering Crown - Conan the Barbarian #26, #27 & #28 - A Review

 

"There is nothing wrong with your [screen device].  Do not attempt to adjust your picture..."

I repurposed the old Outer Limits intro because, believe it or not, we're actually going to discuss a comic on Comics And... today!  Three comics in particular, one of which came out less than two weeks ago!  A stellar installment in Titan Comics' excellent Conan the Barbarian series, going on just over two years now.  The fact that I'm still getting it speaks to how much I enjoy it, and these issues...Well, you could say they're a crowning achievement.  Sorry, I just had to go there.  

Speaking of crowns, as you see on the cover of #28, it's no spoiler that Conan gets the Crown of Aquilonia, but this is a tale about how it could have happened.  I say "could have" because this is a fill-in tale crafted from pieces of various Robert E. Howard stories.  One that has been told at least a couple of times before, as the well-written/researched text piece in #28 relays.

Re-POST Link due to the Winter Olympics

I have several posts brewing in my mind this week, and was up early this morning with time to work on them, but then I put on some Winter Olympics while drinking my hot fizzie (Nuun, Electrolyte Drink tabs dissolved in boiling water)... 

Now, I'm not much of a sports person, with the exception of playoff major league baseball, whenever my "home" team, the Kansas City Royals, is competing.  However, I'm a sucker (as in "sucked in") for Olympic sports, specifically "winter" Olympic sports.  There is something comforting and cozy about watching these events snuggled under a blanket while being stuck inside because of the intense cold weather (the real feel is -1 right now).  Or perhaps, it's because traditionally, you are at home when the games are on, versus the summer games, when you could be traveling or doing something outside yourself. So, it's partially nostalgia and the opportunity to watch with family. Whatever the reason, I'm drawn to all the interesting alpine and sled events, not so much the figure skating (and definitely NOT the hockey - Sorry Canadians).  Maybe I'm also influenced by all those epic ski chases in Bond movies?

And it's always better to watch the events LIVE, which you can do for $11/month on Peacock Premium right now.  $11 for 16 days of content is a good deal, especially if you can bypass the overly packaged, highly USA-biased, summary evening coverage. I certainly want the US Team to do well, but you shouldn't ignore the other athletes.  And it's more exciting when the events unfold in real time.

Man, I thought this would be a quick post, but I'm battling Grammarly (which isn't even enabled), trying to avoid all the underline colors that it's warning me about in my sentence compositions!  The orange ones are the worst, because they're not technically wrong, just not what Grammarly's AI would do, I guess.  I'm writing this you 'bot, not you!! (Sadly, it still is influencing me somewhat...)

Anyway, I wanted to share a link to an old post related to a previous Winter Olympics (again from 16 years ago).  You can find it here.

See you sooner than you may think...possibly.

Wonder Man (2026) - A Review

 

My wife and I finished Wonder Man yesterday, which dropped last Tuesday.  We did it in three viewings (1st: episodes #1-2, 2nd: episodes #3-6, 3rd: episodes #7-8).  Honestly, we probably would've completed it the second night, but other things had to be attended to.  We both thoroughly enjoyed it that much, and it helped that some episodes were pretty short (most are around 35 minutes, but one is only 26).  I'd say, "Watch it, you won't be disappointed", but really that depends on what you like to watch, not my opinion.

TARZAN Lord of the Jungle (#11) - Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

It's a testament to my commitment to my craft and mission (kidding) that I actually finished this novel in what had to be one of the most difficult times of my life in recent memory.  Based on my last Tarzan post, I was almost a third of the way thru #11 in early December, which means I probably started it in late November. And I finally reached the end this past Tuesday (Jan 27), approximately two months later.  There was a long pause amidst Christmas, my mother-in-law's celebration of life service, New Years, and lots of "time off" [NOT a vacation] that included cleaning and packing not only my entire collection but also helping with the rest of the contents of my house as well.  As I mentioned yesterday, there are still things to be done, but not nearly as much is left, so I can enjoy a slight reprieve. That said, my thoughts on this novel will be a bit briefer than normal due to the long time span.

16 YEARS LATER

Today, 2026 January 30th, marks the 16th anniversary of my premiere posting on Comics And...Other Imaginary Tales.  I recommend reading the preamble (at least) from my initial offering, which can be found here, as context for today's post.

As this milestone "sweet sixteen" anniversary approached, I have now reached Season 5 of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, which I began watching back in early November, the day before my Planet Earth/Dylan Hunt post.  I finished the eighth episode (s5.8) yesterday.  It's been a great series so far, which I've enjoyed immensely (especially Harper and Rommy), but a friend warned me at the start that an abrupt change in direction occurs in the fifth season.  After a brutal Season 4 finale, the status quo has been entirely upended as we encounter characters days, months, and years after we've last seen them, displaced in time and space.  They've been living (and surviving) during this time, having undergone major changes along the way (and some regressions as well).  This all reminded me of DC Comics' "One Year Later" event from twenty years ago (2006).

Maybe DC got the idea from Andromeda, since Season 5 began in 2004.  Regardless of where it originated*, it was a pretty nifty publishing endeavor (I hesitate to use the term "gimmick").  After the big (miserable) Infinite Crisis event, DC dropped readers into each title, picking up with the characters "one year later".  And a year in a comic book character's life is a looooong time in normal publishing.  The character may be barely recognizable or their status quo has undergone tectonic shifts, leaving readers to ponder why and what caused this to happen to their "lives".  Creatively, it allowed DC to mix up or establish new creative teams to move the needle on a character's story that otherwise would've taken years to achieve normally.  It's both familiar and nouveau at the same time, with the ongoing story and the backstory unveiling simultaneously.

*Actually, Marvel did it first with Secret Wars back in 1984!  Think Amazing Spider-Man #252 with the first appearance of his black symbiote suit or She-Hulk unexpectedly joining the FF in #265. (See my MMW post from last July for stories from that era, ironically not long before Marvel announced the cancellation/indefinite hiatus of the Marvel Masterworks line.)

[This is different from a hard reboot ala New Earth (post-Crisis), or a soft reboot like One More Day where they de-aged and de-married Peter Parker to make him sexually promiscuous and ruin his character for all time, as it happens in continuity.]

I co-opted DC's "One Year Later" label above for this comparison reflection on where I am...16 years later.

Tarzan and the Ant Men (#10) - Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

In the last Tarzan novel (#18) I read, he encountered some pygmies.  So I thought it would be a nice segue to see what happened in #10, when Tarzan dealt with "Ant Men"!  However, with this story, my Tarzan-wave almost came to a crashing end, and it wasn't because I'm personally dealing with a lot of losses and disruptions in my life right now.  No, this story is, to put it nicely, very problematic; and thus far, the worst Tarzan novel I've encountered.