Month: May 2021

Children of the Atom #3 Review

Posted on by Kenny Velez

Children of the Atom #3 is the latest issue of Children of the Atom, written by Vita Ayala and penciled by Paco Medina.

The character development here is implied like in the first two issues. There is a disconnect between what’s going on in the panels and what’s going on in the narration captions. It’s hard to connect with these characters. I wish we could’ve seen what was described in the captions on the panels.

Also there is a plot hole that I forgot to bring up in the first two issues. It’s the costumes. How does Daycrawler fit his hands and feet inside the three-fingered gloves and the three-fingered shoes? He is shown to have five fingers on each hand outside of his costume, and I’m assuming that he has five toes on each feet too. Also how does someone like Carmen (Gimmick) have access to materials that allow her to make a suit that can generate energy wings or a mask that can shoot lasers out of its visor?

How did they get on the spaceship? Jay (Daycrawler) said that he ran into the “weird crashed spaceship” and dared his brother Benny (Marvel Guy) to chase after him, but we don’t see this. Instead we see the Children of the Atom on the ship in outer space. Also how long ago is “Then”? We know that it takes place before the Children get superpowers, but we aren’t told when this takes place in terms of chronology. Does it take place five months ago? Does it take place a year go?

Out of all the characters, I related with Gabe the most. He is a dapper dress, and has the coolest costume out of the five. He may be just as developed as everyone else, but he stands out more in terms of his character.

Not a lot of action in this issue. I wish we would’ve seen them in costume at least. It makes it seem like not a lot has happened.

The art is better than it was in the first two issues. Bernard Chang is not doing the art for this one, its Paco Medina who draws this issue. His faces are better than Bernard’s faces, that’s for sure, but it takes a while to notice this. The only problem with his art is that sometimes when characters are in a distance he draws their eyes completely black.

The dialogue has gotten better from the first two issues for the most part. There are still some hiccups, such as “Hey, so did Cole hit you up about us all going to his place for dinner tonight?”, but for the most part they are few and far between.

There is this one guy, Arthur Nagan, who is introduced in this issue and he delivers a speech that is extremely unsubtle. He talks about how his organization, Real Unity, believes in Darwinism to two of his friends, their teenage son and his teenage friends. When he delivers this speech, Gabe and Benny turn to each other and give each other looks that says, “what is this guy talking about?”

Jay could have easily been cut. Out of all of the members of the Children of the Atom, he is the one that shows up the least, mostly because of a perceived age difference between him and the rest of the group. He seems to be the youngest of the group. If he was cut out of the story entirely the only parts of it that would need major changes are the combat sequences.

Also the spaceship flashback seems to be out of place. It seems more like a Fantastic Four origin story than an X-Men origin story. They go on a ship, crash back down to Earth, and escape it alive. I wonder how this is going to connect to the X-Men.

Overall nothing in this issue made me want to read a fourth one. There are some improvements made, but for the most part this is where I leave this series.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Review

Posted on by Kenny Velez

Warning: Spoilers

After the boring ass WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier started off as an improvement before it became a disappointment.

Taking place six months after Avengers: Endgame, this miniseries focuses on Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes teaming up to save the world.

The biggest problem I have with this series is its villains. The Flag Smashers lack any sort of individual characterization. I can’t tell you who any of these people are, outside of Karli Morgenthau and Dovich, the one Flag Smasher who opposed her methods. Another problem I have with them is that they are anarchist idiots who can’t see the forest for the trees. Their whole goal is that they want to get rid of governments and have the whole world be united. This would cause more problems than it would solve. For example, this wouldn’t get rid of things like racism, hate, and violence. They are also boring villains as well. The Joker from The Dark Knight is a way more charismatic anarchist than Karli. Like the Flag Smashers, he also robs a bank, but he comes off as way more charismatic, menacing, and interesting and interesting than them.

Lemar Hoskins’s death is completely unnecessary. They could’ve had John Walker drive off the insanity cliff without killing off Lemar. Maybe John has to bring in the Flag Smashers within a certain amount of time, and he feels that the only way to meet this deadline is to take the Super-Soldier Serum. Also Lemar’s death was really stupid. He died from colliding with a pole after being punched by Karli. Really? If he died from that, then how the fuck did John Walker survive being kicked into a windshield by a Flag Smasher? Lemar’s death reminds me of Darwin’s death from X-Men: First Class, only a little more realistic.

But the worst decision they made in this series is revealing that Sharon Carter is the Power Broker. Why? This came off as the writers saying, “Sharon Carter hasn’t done shit in the MCU. Let’s have her be the villain.” This made her character completely pointless in hindsight. She shouldn’t have been in The Winter Soldier and Civil War. She didn’t contribute enough to the plot of these movies to even be in them. Her role in those movies could have easily been filled by some generic S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or an original character like Phil Coulson.

The investigative angle that introduces the Flag Smashers was an effective way to introduce them as a group. Joaquin Torres investigates them by looking at their message board activity and using an app on his phone to detect Flag Smashers in person, and then to Sam’s disapproval Torres infiltrates the Flag Smashers during a bank robbery.

The first episode used relationships and personality traits to show who Falcon and Winter Soldier are outside of Captain America. For example, Falcon’s more ordinary upbringing and Winter Soldier’s barely-human upbringing as an assassin gives them different roles in the plot. Sam’s scenes with his family and Bucky’s first scene with Mr. Nakajima strikes me as things that Captain America cannot do.

Another thing that worked about this series is Baron Zemo. He was very effective as a side character.

Among the things he did, he sings Baa, Baa, Black Sheep to a bunch of little kids and it’s very disturbing. He also has some funny moments as well, such as discussing the importance of Marvin Gaye and dancing in the club. But at the same time they do not undermine his competence. He smashes all but one vial of the Super Soldier Serum, for example.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier started off good, but then it got gradually worse, and the finale took whatever dignity this show had and threw it out the window. My lasting impression of this series is “I’m never gonna watch this again.”