Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441

With only two entirely new stories at the start and end and having everything in the middle be reprints of older stories ranging from the 40s to the 60s, 1974s Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441 is certainly an interesting read. The first story sees Batman take on a criminal named the Judge who puts traps in an abandoned building that the Dark Knight has to go through to find Robin. Reprints from older DC stories, and even from other companies that DC eventually acquired, include Plastic Man solving a murder, two stories wherein Batman investigates murders foreshadowed by paintings, the magical Ibis the Invicible keeping the god of destruction from escaping, an experiment made to try to turn Eclipso good, and an adventure with The Spider. While the last story sees the Paul Kirk II version of Manhunter and Christine St. Clair investigating a terrorist organization in Istanbul. Overall this issue has a good collection of stories that showcase the strengths, and a bit of the weaknesses, of comics from the four decades. The story and writing for them are very imaginative and tells their story well, but also suffer from overuse of exposition. Dialogue can also go for way too long and has a tendency to fill in the artwork, thus keeping the reader from actually seeing what they're saying. As fun as the stories can be, the older they are the more obvious it is that logic wasn't always a key factor to how the stories continue and ended. And that's fine as even without the logic, their writing does keep you invested and entertained throughout. The artwork for all eight stories are pretty good and showcase the evolution of how comics were drawn from the 40s to the 70s. One thing that's consistent for the most part in the four decades is the attention to detail of the characters and locations. Although one thing that the newest stories have over the older ones is that more panels are used to showcase action rather than having things happen off screen and being exposited. But all in all Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441 is a great collection of comic book stories with not a single one being a chore to get through. Over all: 100%

Top list so far for 3rd set of comics:

1. The Complete Peanuts Vol. 15: 1979-1980

2. Daredevil Vol. 1 #170

3. The New Teen Titans Vol. 1 #1

4. Green Arrow Vol. 1 #1

5. Star Wars: Dark Empire #1

6. Deadman: Love After Death #1

7. Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vol. 1

8. Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441

9. Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection (Eternals (1976-1978))

10. Hulk Vol. 5 #1

11. Avnegers: War Across Time #1

12. The Yellow Kid

13. Archie and Me #132

14. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1

15. Action Comics Vol. 1 #674

Revised Overall Ratings of 2023 Films

1. Oppenheimer-100%

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse-100%

3. Wonka-100%

4. Godzilla Minus One-100%

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem-99%

6. Asteroid City-99%

7. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3-98%

8. Blue Beetle-97%

9. Barbie-97%

10. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One-93%

11. Elemental-92%

12. Air-92%

13. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves-92%

14. Creed III-92%

15. John Wick: Chapter 4-92%

16. Scream VI-91%

17. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes-87%

18. Killers of the Flower Moon-85%

19. M3GAN-84%

20. Dumb Money-84%

21. The Marvels-82%

22. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny-78%

23. Cocaine Bear-74%

24. Knock at the Cabin-72%

25. The Flash-68%

26. The Super Mario Bros. Movie-66%

27. Wish-64%

28. Renfield-64%

29. Fast X-62%

30. The Little Mermaid 2023-62%

31. Shazam! Fury of the Gods-61%

32. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts-59%

33. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania-55%

Wonka

Timothée Chalamet takes over from Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp as Roald Dahl's iconic chocolatier in Wonka. This film sees Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka as he sets out to make his mark in the world with his unique way of making chocolate and candy. Along the way he deals with corrupt policemen, ruthless competition with other chocolate makers, and scamming laundromat owners while making his late mother proud, gains friends from other broken dreamers, and comes upon an annoyed Oompa-Loompa. While the rest of the cast is wonderful, including Hugh Grant as a Loompa, it's Chalamet who excels at playing the magical candy maker. He gives a good combination of Wilder's movement and mannerisms with Depp's oddness and energy while having his own takes on the character. Paul King as a director and cowriter with Simon Farnaby really capture the perfect aspects to what made the original book and the 1971 and 2005 movies so memorable. The whimsical and childlike nature is all there and manages to make the most absurd parts fit really well into this film's world. Especially helped by the production design, cinematography from Chung Chung-hoon, the breathless score by Joby Talbot, and Neil Hannon's songs that are perfectly choreographed by the casts' fun and quick dancing. If there was one movie to end 2023 with then there's no other perfect choice than the wonderful, whimsical, and wholesome Wonka. Over all: 100%

2023 top list so far:

1. Oppenheimer

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

3. Wonka

4. Godzilla Minus One

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

6. Asteroid City

7. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

8. Blue Beetle

9. Barbie

10. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1

11. Elemental

12. Air

13. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

14. Creed III

15. John Wick: Chapter 4

16. Scream VI

17. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

18. Killers of the Flower Moon

19. M3GAN

20. Dumb Money

21. The Marvels

22. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

23. Cocaine Bear

24. Knock at the Cabin

25. The Flash

26. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

27. Wish

28. Renfield

29. Fast X

30. The Little Mermaid 2023

31. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

32. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

33. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Wish

2023 is the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney Pictures and Wish is the movie that celebrates the studio's centennial. In their latest animated project, Ariana DeBose voices a young girl named Asha who lives in a kingdom whose king grants a wish from one of his subjects once a month with the caveat that all other desires are forgotten by those he hasn't fulfilled. When she is given the chance to be King Magnifico's apprentice Asha learns that he only grants desires that won't risk his rule, including her grandfather's long awaited wish to become a musician. Unable to fight back against Magnifico, Asha's wish towards a shooting star leads to the star to become alive and leads to the two and Asha's friends to rebel against Magnifico who starts to use dark magic when he feels threatened. As Disney is well known for adapting old fairy tale stories, its animation style is a pretty good, though not perfect, combination of traditional and computer generated animation. It gives it a very storybook feel that would often open the early Disney films like Snow White and Pinocchio. One flaw is that some of the movement by the characters at the start does feel a bit stiff, but does improve as it goes. But the designs, look, lighting, color, and backgrounds do look incredibly stunning thanks to cinematographers Rob Dressel and Adolph Lusinsky. The initial story is perfect for celebrating Disney's 100th anniversary, and Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore do a great job at showcasing the studio's legacy through many great references, but it feels very cliche. Magnifico's turn to villainy felt like it needed more time, certain aspects of Asha's journey are a bit bland, and often certain choices the characters make are done just to reference Disney's past. However, Lee and Lusinsky do manage to make the characters likable enough to at least not make them boring and keep them endearing. Normally, Disney animated films excel best with the music, and while Dave Metzger's score is good, sadly the songs from Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice aren't the strongest. The opening song where Asha welcomes new people to Rosas isn't too strong and Magnifico's villain song is just okay but not highly memorable. The best one is definitely Asha's "This Wish", which gets a reprise with the other cast members, and manages to be highly memorable but also feeling like it needed more. But if there's one thing that you can't take away from this movie are the strong performances from its cast. Alongside DeBose you have Chris Pine having a fun time as a villain, Victor Garber giving a lot of warmth as Asha's grandfather, and Alan Tudyk stealing the movie as Asha's goat. While Wish may not be the best film to celebrate its parent company's centennial, that shouldn't take away from what is a wonderful looking, but very flawed, movie. Over all: 84%

2023 top list so far:

1. Oppenheimer

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

3. Godzilla Minus One

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

5. Asteroid City

6. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

7. Blue Beetle

8. Barbie

9. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1

10. Elemental

11. Air

12. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

13. Creed III

14. John Wick: Chapter 4

15. Scream VI

16. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

17. Killers of the Flower Moon

18. M3GAN

19. Dumb Money

20. The Marvels

21. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

22. Cocaine Bear

23. Knock at the Cabin

24. The Flash

25. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

26. Wish

27. Renfield

28. Fast X

29. The Little Mermaid 2023

30. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

31. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

32. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection (Eternals (1976-1978))

From 1976 to 1978, Jack Kirby created one of his most epic storylines for Marvel that only lasted for 19 issues and an Annual in 1977, as collected in Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection (Eternals (1976-1978)). Initially set outside the mainline Marvel universe, though not made clear in its first few issues and then retconned to be set in the 616 timeline in the Thor comics, the story is an epic tale dealing with the evolution of humanity. Over the course of the series it's revealed that god-like beings known as Celestials experimented on early humans leading to two factions often at war with one another, the human looking but highly evolved Eternals and the monstrous and violent Deviants. In the modern day, the return of the Celestials leads to the two factions to reveal themselves to the humans of Earth as the judgment of Earth is decided. No stranger to highly epic and large scale storytelling like his work on New Gods for DC Comics, Jack Kirby certainly shows incredible range when delving into the history and mythology of the Eternals and Deviants. His writing is so incredibly detailed and meticulous, add to that his iconic artwork, and you get such an unforgettable story. The art style Kirby does alongside John Verpoorten and Mike Royer's ink and Glynis Wein's colors are incredible and really pop out towards the reader. Of course, it is not without its flaws, especially from a comic series that came out throughout the mid to late 70s. Kirby's storytelling, world building, and character developments are all very strong, but a lot of his dialogue can come off as a bit stiff, overly exposited, and often silly. Certain story choices can also feel like coming out of nowhere, such as not immediaetly revealing that it's set in another universe though still having S.H.I.E.L.D., the Eternals and Deviants being revealed through anthropology, and Ikaris fighting a robot version of the Hulk powered by cosmic radiation. As vibrant and wonderful as the artwork is, its biggest flaw often has to be the often over expressive faces that some characters give at the most random times and how stiff some characters look when flying. Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection (Eternals (1976-1978)) is a great collection that showcases Jack Kirby's greatest strengths, though some of his smaller weaknesses as well. Over all: 100%

Top list so far for 3rd set of comics:

1. The Complete Peanuts Vol. 15: 1979-1980

2. Daredevil Vol. 1 #170

3. The New Teen Titans Vol. 1 #1

4. Green Arrow Vol. 1 #1

5. Star Wars: Dark Empire #1

6. Deadman: Love After Death #1

7. Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vol. 1

8. Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection (Eternals (1976-1978))

9. Hulk Vol. 5 #1

10. Avnegers: War Across Time #1

11. The Yellow Kid

12. Archie and Me #132

13. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1

14. Action Comics Vol. 1 #674