Well, Free Comic Book Day has come and gone once again and Super-Fly Comics & Games had its best FCBD ever. Before the doors opened the line to get in stretched down the entire block. We gave out roughly 700 pounds of comic books in just two hours; and Super-Fly had its fourth biggest sales day ever. I myself was unable to attend, but I did make it to two Cincinnati comic shops, Amazing Comics and Nostalgic Ink and found both stores to be pleasantly crowded with receptive and appreciative customers, included among them a good number of females.
That's right, actual girls who from the large piles of comics in their hands and no visible signs of quiet suffering, were actual fans and not grudging girlfriends. At this point, that should pretty much go without saying, but unfortunately, there will always be those who can never hear it often enough.
So it's a good thing I liked Age of Ultron as much as I did, which brings us to the part of the column where I "don't" review the movie. I know I always say that, the same way I immediately afterwards try to find at least one new thing to say about that year's comic book movie blockbuster. But in the case of Age of Ultron all I've managed to come up with is, isn't it kind of cool how without trying (or rather by not trying) Big Dork Bruce Banner earns the love of the Black Widow? And though he was never one of my favorite characters I must confess I felt a bit of frison seeing The Vision literally come to life; using mostly quiet and stillness, Paul Bettany gives the character a remarkable amount of grace and gravitas in the limited amount of screen time he's given.
There actually was a 9am showing of Age of Ultron that Friday and if I had been ten years younger I might actually have gone to it, if just for the freak factor alone. Though I have to confess I was also curious as to see who else would show up that early on a workday. I found it wasn't hard to find out after the fact; with a keystroke the young lady shoveling popcorn was able to tell me that 84 people had attended. Which is pretty impressive, considering there were only twenty-five people at the 11:30 showing I ended up attending.
After Age of Ultron, the list of movies I want to see this year basically consists of Tomorrowland and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, after which come the maybes: Minions, Ant-Man and The Man From UNCLE. And in the "longshot" category, while "researching" (by typing "Most Anticipated Films of 2015" into Google), I found a couple of sites that are apparently in all seriousness claiming we’ll be seeing Shane Black's Doc Savage movie sometime this year. Seeing as how they haven't even cast the lead yet I'm going to call this "wishful thinking," that’s something that could willingly get me into a theater…
You can tell it's based on a toy line by the way both Batman and The Penguin each go through three distinct costume changes. Batman's are mostly story-driven but The Penguin goes from wearing his standard basic black outfit to one in purple to a screaming yellow number that makes him look like the world’s oldest pimp for no particular reason. And there are also plenty of futuristic vehicles including a robotic Ace the Bat Hound who can turn into a motorcycle.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.