Super Inc., Villain’s Edition (Vol 2)

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Super Inc., Villain’s Edition

Staff: Aghori Shaivite

Overview:

A comic that tries to be a mafia story and a super villain story and fails at both.

Review:

This is a long one so I am going to break it down by chapter. To start with we get a very nice, succinct, flavorful intro that established the developer’s intent and the world in which the character’s live.

 

As it jumps into chapter 1, I am not sure if we are getting some sort of meta-humor or if this is an established “thing” in the universe of the comic. A villain is asking for space in a comic anthology from a woman. Now they keep having these references to issue #1 in the comic, which I was assured I wouldn’t have had to read. 10 pages in and I still feel lost. I have no idea what is going on. Best I can figure, this super villain is bugging some staff member at a comic company to be included in an issue. The chapter ends and I’ve still got no idea what that was all about. Was it a meta-gag? Was it a in-universe comic company and it has something to do with these “saints of death” the forward tells us about?

 

Overall the art isn’t outright bad but it doesn’t rise high enough to be called “good”. While the biology, proportions, and expressions are well enough, each panel seems to have one or two really odd/creepy errors in it. Like on page 7 one of the panels has this woman with creepy, lipless, teeth (only in that panel) and then the eyes of other characters seem to be drawn differently on occasion.

Chapter 1 wasn’t my cup of tea I guess. Oh well, let’s read chapter 2.

 

The second chapter has a different art style that I actually like. It kind of has that art deco/Andy Warhol/retro look to it and that’s something I can really dig. It’s up there with some of my favorite comic art that I’ve reviewed. It’s a night and day difference from the first chapter’s sloppy art style but it makes me wonder why they didn’t just use this style in the first place. I can follow this story and it does live up to the mobster-esque theme and inspiration promised in the forward. It does kind of begin and end rather quickly and is really a contextless vignette which kind of detracts from the overall appeal of it but it showcased some fantastic art direction so I suppose it served its purpose.
Chapter 3 against switches art styles on us to a more American comic book art style, though with some oddly flat tones. It looks like the artist is like 75-90% of the way to doing good art but there are still some awkward lines and stock poses that don’t really lend themselves to the scene compositions. It feels like this is an artist attempting to mimic a style he/she doesn’t draw all the time or at least is fresh off the boat with that style. For all the crap I just gave it though, it’s pretty solid. The use of dutch and high angle shots is excellently used and even the speed lines work to the comic’s advantage.
Chapter 4 goes back to a style with similar quality to that of chapter 1 (if not worse) and it’s a real sharp contrast in quality. After seeing the excellent art in chapter 2 and the great use of angels in chapter 3, this stuff is forced upon us again? What’s wrong? Could the production company not afford to pay a decent artist to do the entire thing? I think one of the biggest issue with the comic is the inconsistent tone and art style that is REALLY distracting.

 

Chapter 4 has this awkward issue that a lot of modern indie artists have. They don’t draw the backgrounds really. They draw the character and the background separate. This leads to an almost “cutout” feel to the comic and subtly screws with perspective (the characters and the backgrounds don’t always mix well). For a good example of this we can look at page 33. The nurse and doctor look like they are blood deflated sex dolls! Like 2 dimensional cardboard cutouts tossed against the inside of a textured cube. The artist uses the SAME texture over and over for backgrounds and just changes the color. As a reader I can’t help but notice it and it really doesn’t look very professional.

Anyway, back to the plot of chapter 4. I am totally lost as to what is going on even a few pages in. I don’t know who Simon is and why I should care about him or what he has to do with Dom from the last chapter (as this is basically “chapter 3, part 2” according to the title). It takes a few pages for the reader to get back to the guy who’s name is in the title and it was a little disruptive to the narrative flow I felt. It basically talks about how they resurrected a drug lord as a supervillain.
Chapter 5 again switches artists (I wish they would stick with one good one…) and we get some decent artwork. Not groundbreaking, but when compared to the rest of the comic it’s one of the better drawn chapters. There is this odd tonal shift from Martin Scorsese-esque drug drama with realistic characters to campy super-villain stuff and it doesn’t pass smoothly. It’s a rocky road and it isn’t handled well. We have a character, Dom, who goes from dressing like a legitimate human being with some street smarts to a underwear on the outside supervillain who says “aarrrg”. Oh yeah, he’s vaguely “pirate” themed because… reasons. His love interest says “oh he liked the jolly roger flag” and thus- he’s pirate themed. Wow. Talk about a jolting transition. I almost wish this comic was just about the drug conflict and not some knock off version of the superfriend’s “Legion of Super-Villains”. Then they give legitimate drug pushers and street thugs super villain names and it goes over right as rain? Kill me now. This comic had promise of being a good one. Why!?
Chapter 6’s art style is akin to the style in chapter 5 (definitely a different artist though). The plot revolves around the attack on a compound where Dom gets his revenge. We see his love interest again here and… god… she just looks so camp-tastic as well. I can’t get over that. There were some serious missteps in the character design department here. I feel like this comic went from the shootout scene in Godfather to the monarch’s lair from Venture Brothers really fast.
Chapter 7 (the epilogue) probably has the worst art in the entire comic and introduces a new character that teases at the next comic. I’m going to leave it at that and just remember the good parts of this comic.

Ok so now that the recap is out of the way let’s look at things in broader strokes:

God there was some awful font choices in this comic. The forward was fine but then you get to this page with a map of “the world states” and it’s a wonder I can discern what anything says. It is not easy on the eyes and is a major pain in the butt to read. Most of the time it’s fine but when they try to get fancy, it just doesn’t work (See “The Origin of Cap. Death”). There are a few times when the letters get pretty close to the edge of the dialogue balloons but I don’t think I can remember any time where it made it particularly hard to read. The lettering would have flowed better if whoever was doing the lettering took advantage of doing a diamond pattern with their text rather than a left align. Some of the shout balloons look like they were just quickly made with a pen tool and don’t have that professional edge to them. The onomatopoeia varies from chapter to chapter but it’s pretty phoned in. An onomatopoeia should be text that visually indicated the sound (an echo should trail off, a whisper can be ghastly in color and transparent). Overall, this comic could probably benefit from a legitimate letterer.

 

On a technical level, I’ll point out in hat whoever did the layout/formatting had some technical issues. The pages are centered on the page over a black background with the page number to the bottom right of the bottom most panel. However, sometimes the white background has the page number as well, has “CapNDeath” written on it, and sometimes nothing at all. It’s like the clipping varies from page to page and chapter to chapter. It is kind of distracting.

 

Overall this is a busy, squandered, comic. It keeps shifting artists which makes it rather difficult to really settle on a tone and what starts out as something that has promise ends up being thrown to the campy wolves. If it had been one or the other, this comic would not just have been good but great. Instead we have a hodge podge of maffia themes and characters thrown in with campy super villains and the result is a soupy tasteless mess.

 

Metrics

Art: 3/10 (While a few chapters had good art, the average overall is poor)

Ch1: 2/10, Ch2: 9/10, Ch3: 5/10, Ch4: /10, Ch5: 5/10, Ch6: 5/10, Ch7: 1/10

Lettering: 3/10 (Some poor font choices and layout issues present a very unprofessional comic)

Plot: 4/10 (YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!  It was said that you would destroy the cliches, not join them! Bring balance to Comics, not leave it in darkness!)

Novelty: 5/10 (Know what? It’s never been done before. It fell flat but at least you tried.)

Overall: 3.75/10

 

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The Spirit and The Shadow

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The Spirit and The Shadow

Staff: Thomas Lavalle and Brandon Swope

Overview:

A vampire detective story with terrible art.

Review:

Ok so today I’ll be looking at “Spirit & Shadow”. It’s a vampire detective comics that promises to intrigue. “Book 1” consists of several “nights”. As I review only the first issue of things, I will be reviewing only Night #1. Let’s jump in!

First things that grabs me is the art of this comic. It’s hard to ignore. Honestly, I haven’t seen art this bad since my Surreal Murder Mysteries review. It’s bad enough that it is offensive. Like even things like Tim & Lynne or Screw Phillips had a decent attempt at it and I Am Michael Watcher showed some promise. This is just bad. It feels like someone drew over some reference pictures poorly sometimes and other times they just wholesale crop images from other places (see the neck’s “wound” on page 10). Sometimes they just re-used illustrations from previous pages and just swap the backgrounds (see page 1 and page 22). Other than just poor overall line work, we have some disproportional body parts and odd need to MOSTLY use black, white, grey, and red (which is SUPERsaturated, like 255 red). I think this color pallet could have been pulled off (check out how The Zoo Act did it!) but it wasn’t utilized really poorly here. They also have this odd need to entirely black out people who have any shadow on them. This reduces them to black profiles with a slight gradient on that. Lighting is a large part of how you dress a scene (here is a link to some of the basics of lighting) and can drastically effect the mood of a scene.

The layout is… novel at least. It reads more like a graphic novel than a comic (which is totally fine). The layout is a white background with some legible font choice. I would have suggested something not too stiff and maybe something a little more “comicy” (free form, hand written, etc) as it is dialogue and the one they used looks more like a standard word processor font. The overall effect looks more like they didn’t want to or didn’t have the budget/time to do a “full” comic and just opted to do a simpler format. It looks really unprofessional. It should be noted that near the end of night 1 it gets close to doing something like a “comic” style but it’s too little too late.

The story saves it somewhat. It’s a pretty standard police procedural, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically a bad story. I love cop dramas and the added vampire twist was a lot of fun. It did feel a bit shoehorned in sometimes; “it’s a cop story BUT with vampires!” was the pitch I’d imagine. However, if you ignore the art the characters are pretty identifiable and the story rather rich.

Overall, I’d skip this one. There is such a thing as perspective, as positioning, as emoting, as detail, as using visuals to tell a story! None of this is there. It feels like stock images used to technically qualify this as a “comic”. This would probably be a decent novel or short story if it was written like that but it really don’t work in the visual medium they attempted here. I can’t recommend this one.

Metrics

Art: 0/10 (Some of the worst I’ve reviewed)

Lettering: 2/10 (Poor layout choice that didn’t work)

Plot: 4/10 (Standard fare)

Novelty: 3/10 (This should shine some light on it)

Overall: 2.25/10

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Interesting Tymes

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Interesting Tymes

Staff: Dave McCluskey and Andrew Morrice

Overview:

Tales from the crypt meets 2000s Cartoon Network.

Review:

I gotta admit, Interesting Tymes is not the sort of comic that normally falls in my wheelhouse and didn’t particularly interest me. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place and that you won’t like it. It’s definitely got an appeal to a certain demographic, but that demographic isn’t mine so please keep that in mind as you read this and forgive me for the rather short review.

Interesting Tymes has a cartoony art style that kind of reminds me of Cartoon Network’s animation style in the early 2000s and it’s not bad per say (it is definitely not a “big name comic style” by any stretch of the imagination). It works for what it is going for and when it’s good it’s good.

The plot of this comic is kind of a “Tales from the Crypt” style collection of 6 stories. I honestly didn’t connect with any of the tales as they were rather simplistic in terms of the content they covered- but when you are aiming at a younger demographic (as the art style implies) it’s a good choice. They had a bad kid/santa bit, one at sea, one involving clowns, another with little red, and a kind of generic “haunted house” story. All the stories had kind of a darker theme so Tales from the Crypt is an appropriate comparison (On a weird sidenote, I still don’t know what they title had to do with the story).

The lettering on this comic was unfortunate. There were a number of clipping errors with the characters, there were some less than clear fonts applied, and a few other little things. While we are harping on technical aspects of it, lets just pull off the bandaid. The comic had this issue where clipped parts of a page would appear on the far edge of the next page. This should have easily been caught with a quick look over and is probably an export error related to the definition of page borders.

Overall, while it’s definitely not in my wheelhouse it just feels like someone just kind of wrote these with no heart. I know that’s a mean thing to say and I’m sure a lot of time was invested into it but it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It’s just a rehashing of old characters, themes, and topics that doesn’t amount to anything really new. If you are looking for a comic for a little boy to read, you could do worse. Give it a read!

Metrics

Art: 6/10 (Catroony but well done)

Lettering: 1/10 (Several technical issues and lettering choices plague this comic)

Plot: 5/10 (Competently written)

Novelty: 1/10 (Nothing new)

Overall: 3.25/10

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The Legend Of Harapan

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SUB004008The Legend Of Harapan

Staff: JT Campbell

Overview:

It’s got a talking lion but it’s much cooler than Narnia.

Review:

Alright so today I’m looking at The Legend Of Harapan. Cover’s got a lion so that’s a good sign. Let’s jump on in.

The first thing that we are meet with in this comic is an eye-killing cursive note. I get that it was meant to look “hand written” (it even uses a vintage paper texture) and it fits with the style of the comic… but Christ I wish artists would stop using this particular set up. Mage – The Awakening’s sourcebook had this same issue- cursive is NOT easy to read. I mean this wasn’t even particularly keened cursive, but still- not a treat for the eyes. If it was just ONE page in the comic I think it could have been forgiven, but it keeps popping up.

However, once we get past those pages we are treated to a very unique and colorful art style and some very easy on the eyes text. One thing I’ll note here is that while the art seems rather simplistic (kind of like a kid’s illustrated book) but it is actually very well executed. It takes a lot of skill to give so much expression and life to simple creatures and there is no lack of detail here. There is a great use of dynamic posing here and the way they use panels is top notch (example: Page 13 has a rabbit jumping across two panels to indicate movement). They also have a good grasp of visual storytelling, allowing events to transpire without dialogue but still conveying understanding.

To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to get a story about talking lions when I opened this PDF- but I don’t think I was disappointed. It’s not some kind of furry thing (hey- if you like it, more power to you. Not my cup of tea though) so it didn’t bother me all that much. Kind of got the Narnia vibe from it instead. The story itself is pretty linear but it’s not insultingly so. You can kind of call what is going to happen (this is not an M. Night Shyamalan story) but I don’t know if this is a really an issue. I get the idea that this is kind of geared to a younger demographic? At the very least it’s not going to attract the same audience as like Sin City.

Overall it was a fun little read. It’s just over 30 pages and you don’t feel cheated on anything. It manages to set up a good little story and I think there is a lot of potential in the way this could play out. Definitely worth a read.

Metrics

Art: 6/10 (Very well done. Expressive yet simple.)

Lettering: 3/10 (Good overall but some NASTY cursive pages)

Plot: 5/10 (Solid.)

Novelty: 6/10 (Novel artstyle. Took some risks, some paid off, some did not.)

Overall: 5/10

Link to Site

Link to Buy It

Life & Death in Paradise

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Life & Death in Paradise

Staff: Nigel Lynch and Matthew Clarke

Overview:

Miami Vice meets a gang story in a way that will rock your world.

Review:

Alright so I got a comic for you all today that you’re gonna wanna read. It’s called Life & Death in Paradise and it’s downright fantastic. I should start this off by saying that it’s definitely got a mature tag on it for a reason. Anyway…

Oh my god- this is so refreshing artistically. It looks like the 90s vomited on a comic page and it’s wonderful. I know that’s not the most professional way to put it- but I absolutely love the visuals this comic has. It’s got a kind of urban, Miami Vice, look to it. The real glory of this comic’s art is the little details they put in the background of every scene. It makes what could be a pretty boring setting (some guy’s basic apartment for example) into an expression of who the character is (he’s got a PS3, he’s watching pron, there is a sheetless mattress for a bed, a shotgun placed near him on some cinder blocks, there is an refilled Mt. Dew bottle, etc). THIS is a perfect example of how a comic’s visual element can be used to tell us things about the character without exposition. I learned more about the people in this room in two panels by the junk in their room than by the entire dialogue of other comics. I get who they are. Another fantastic thing this comic does is use non-character elements to inform us visually of what’s going on. For example, we have some guys with guns running and in the corner of the panel a frog is jumping out of their way. That little frog is a visual que for the way they are moving. They didn’t stealthily walk into this place- they flipped the corner and hammered their way down the street, not paying attention to (or maybe caring about) the frog. You’ll forgive me for the way I’m gushing about this but this is like a fine meal here- everything is working visually. I want other indie writers to go and read this comic to understand what fantastic artistic direction looks like!

The lettering is crisp and clean without being “smooshed” (yes… that’s a technical term 😉 ) or taking over the scene. There were a rare few instances when the comic had some of the lettering rather close to the edge of the dialogue box, but never enough to really threaten being unreadable. I like how the comic lets the action speak for itself a lot and only uses dialogue like real people would. One thing that was kind of hit or miss was the use of slang/accented language. While it was effective in creating a cohesive vibe and making the characters feel very real- it made it hard to decipher what was being said sometimes.

If there was one thing that wasn’t as strong as the rest of the comic it was the plot. While the story and topical choice was fine, it was the lack of a central set of characters that threw me off. We are kind of given a situation and then shown the execution and impact from a few different angles. While this is successful, I don’t know if it was the best choice. I didn’t get as invested in any particular set of characters or an individual so that kind of weakened a few scenes that could have been stronger.

Overall this comic was a goddam joy to read. The bright, complex, visuals meshed perfectly with the way this was written and the topic at hand. I haven’t come across something so competently illustrated in a long time and it’s nice to see some new ground being covered in terms of tone/subject matter. This is a must read.

Metrics

Art: 9/10 (Learn something from this comic guys)

Lettering: 6/10 (Very clean with a few minor mistakes)

Plot: 6/10 (Complex, fun, and new)

Novelty: 7/10 (Covers a lot of ground in tone, subject matter, and visuals)

Overall: 7/10

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The Man in the Moon

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The Man in the Moon

Staff: Alden Leeke

Overview:

A fun little Cthulhu romp.

Review:

Ok so I gotta say, this comic does not have professional grade artwork. No where near it. I mean it conveys what is going on pretty well, but it doesn’t really do it any favors. Christ, they even life-traced some images (example: Page 8) and attempted to draw over it.

I did like how the comic used a novel approach to dialogue bubbles thought. Each image is flanked by “torn off” pieces of paper with the dialogue written on them. Unfortunately, it is all very roughly done and doesn’t look very realistic (even within the context of the medium). Furthermore, the lettering gets very close to the edge and has relative inconsistent placement in regards to the piece of paper it’s written on.

The plot is pretty simplistic but it seems like there was a lot of love in its inception. It’s a kind of apocalypse story that involves some Lovecraftian elements. It feels a bit rushed and the pacing doesn’t really work. It’s kind of cranked up to 11 the entire way though so it all feels very boring (“It’s a tsunami!” “Then Religious War”!). It all smells of a very green writing staff. While they really want to incorporate elements of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s mythos- they fail spectacularly to grasp the tone that made his works so phenomenal. Tossing a few tentacles in a story doesn’t make it Lovecraftian. It’s about suspense, horror, mystery, and twists- not blunt set pieces of world destruction.

Metrics

Art: 2/10 (Some traced, some just poor)

Lettering: 3/10 (Sloppy and inconsistent)

Plot: 3/10 (Wasn’t bad. Wasn’t memorable.)

Novelty: 4/10 (At least they put Lovecraft in it. Nice idea with the dialogue balloons.)

Overall: 3/10

Beatrice is Dead

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Beatrice is Dead

Staff: S. Zainab Williams and Robert Burrows

This is going to be a fairly short review. 100% disclosure: I did not get though the entire comic. I got about 30 pages in and I couldn’t read further. I have been reading a LOT of really dark comics recently and I don’t feel I can objectively review this comic’s tone or theme as a result. It’s really tasking on the psyche to read so many of them. Thus this review will not include a score at the end.

The art in this comic is downright gorgeous, stylized, and fitting to its dark tone. I loved how the incorporated non-illustrated page elements as part of the graphic design (like a business card, etc). However, something that really bothered me was the text avalanche on the “book” pages. Comics are a visual and literary medium. It really destroyed the overall flow of the book. I’ve seen successful illustrated novels but tossing 5 pages of text 10 pages in then interspersing it throughout the book is not a wise choice. Those pages felt very cheap and there were some good visuals I’d like to have seen. Watchmen did this fantastically with the “Tales of the Black Freighter” subplot in the book and their little inserts. This just felt like they ran out of art budget. Let me also add, in closing, that this book had a good premise going for it. It just didn’t grab me because I’ve been reading a lot of other dark/gritty comics recently.

Deep/Dark Comics Rant

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Ok so I’m gonna soap box here for a minute. Please pardon my little rant.

 

Dark =/= good, deep, or even emotional.

 

Some comics REALLY suffer from this. I think I’ve made the statement “it has really well done, thematically appropriate, stylized art that fits the dark tone of the comic” a half dozen times recently. It kinda of bothers me. Like why do people think that doing some hyper stylized, unbelievably dark tone automatically makes a comic “good”?

 

I think it takes a lot more skill to craft a comic that has an upbeat or neutral tone. The Captain America movies did a fantastic job of portraying an heroic character in a shitty world and still kept it upbeat! “Life sucks”. Congratulations, you’ve discovered what every 8th grader has. Harping on it for 64 pages while you tell what would otherwise be an interesting story doesn’t lend gravity to a story- it detracts from it.

 

I get that HBO and other contemporary media sources kind of made this a “thing” but if I have to slog though ANOTHER dark “twisted” or “grittily realistic” indie comic I’m going to go insane. I’ve really done a million of them. Doing this doesn’t make you “unique”. It makes you trite. It’s not fun to read and doesn’t make me want to come back for more. It’s like a punishment from the comic gods. I guess I need to add that to my list of “so often overdone genres of indie comics” right there next to ill-thought out superhero comics with no substance 😦 .
Ok, sorry. I had to get that out of my system. Now back to reviewing gritty, twisted, dark, indie comics…

Noir City

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Noir City

Staff: Cody Walker, Richard alerius, Allen Byrns

Overview:

Well… it IS a Noir Comic.  Crazy art style.

Review:

Today we’ve got Noir City and it’s a, you guessed it, noir style murder mystery. So grab your snub nosed pistols, trenchcoats, and fedoras because we’re going to jump headlong into this one!

Truly wonderful and bizarre art style. Looks like a grunge texture was applied as the background on each page. This comic’s artwork is hyper stylized. Sometimes we get scratchy stick figures (when appropriate) and other times we get some goddamn beautiful artwork. Don’t take any part of this to mean that the art is anything but top notch. The use of textures is innovative as they switch up to fit the panel and even the pencil stroke borders around the panels plays to the overall aesthetic. Another cool little thing of note is that the color palette shifts between “then” and “now” rather than just some other little trick. The artist also has a great grasp of the basics (anatomy, composition, dynamic motion, etc) and that really helps what would otherwise be a graphic design nightmare. The only bad side I can see is that the artist didn’t draw all the pieces I think. There are some stock images or something (example: the car and door on the spread on page 5 of the PDF, the lips on page 10, etc). It’s a real shame but I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t intentional.

One thing I will note is that the text is a bit blurry and rather small for the panel size. Even zooming in it is still very hard to read as a result of the font choice and the rasterization issues. It was a real pain in the butt and I had to zoom in pretty close to make it out.

The text, when I could read it, was excessively grim and dower. Then again, with the super-dark color pallet, the deformed art style, and a title like Noir City- what else could I possibly expect? I think detect a bit of a Frank Miller fan as some of the dialogue has his fingerprints all over it (most notable Batman Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, and Sin City). The thing is though, and I’m going to be the biggest comic hipster here, but it seems like this style has been done to death and it almost seems derivative. The writing in this comic never really clicked with me for some reason.

The plot was fun. It was the typical set up, down on his luck man finds himself thrown into a mystery he didn’t want or ask to be in. We get some hints about his past but ultimately we are left with more questions than answers by the end of it. I don’t know if that’s bad characterization or good mystery writing (if I had to guess- the latter). The story is very tight and it seems like it’s going somewhere.

Overall I was a big fan of the art but I don’t know if I really cared for the writing style (glum almost the point of parody), or the lettering made this a really hard read. It’s somewhere between a good comic and a better mystery novel but I don’t know if it makes a smooth transition to the medium. Anyway, check it out!

Metrics

Art: 7/10 (A few good pieces, but a lot of rough stuff)

Lettering: 2/10 (Tiny and blurry)

Plot: 4/10 (Well written but somewhat derivative)

Novelty: 5/10 (A new take on artwork and you don’t see many noirs)

Overall: 4.5/10

Link to Site

Things You Might Have Missed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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So since not everyone is a huge comic nerd I thought it would be fun to put together a little “what you might have missed” guide of sorts. If you’re a Marvel fanboy, you probably know all this and more. I’m sure I’m missing a few things here but here were some of the highlights. I know I normally just do reviews on this site but I figured this would be a welcome entry 🙂

Oh yeah, this post is going to be spoiler-tastic so stop reading if you haven’t seen it.
Batroc
That dude who hijacks the boat and has that awesome fight scene with Cap? Yeah, that’s Batroc the Leaper. Old Marvel villain. Super cheesy but it was cool to see him. I was kind of wondering why the guy could LEAP so far until I figured out who he was 🙂

 

Brock Rumlow
You know that random SHIELD agent they gave a bunch of screentime to? The one who lead the strike team with Cap? Yeah, he is Crossbones. Another Cap villain. The end teases that he is alive.

 

Bruce Banner
Yep, they name drop the big green guy during the scene with Fury getting “almost killed”.

 

Agent Sitwell
This SHIELD agent has popped up in a lot of the Marvel movie universe. He was in Thor, had a cameo in the Avengers on the Helicarrier, and Agents of SHIELD. He’s the bald dude with glasses.

 

Dr. Strange
Yep, you hear them namedrop the man behind Dr. Strange (Stephen Strange) in that comic in one point in the movie. It is when Sitwell tells Cap that there are “dangerous people out there” like Stephen Stranger, etc, etc, etc.

 

Wargames
Yeah… that was a wargames reference Black Widow made.

 

The Chitauri Scepter
In the end credits interjected clip we see the staff Loki used during The Avengers being tampered with.

 

Falcon

Ok so it’s not a “what you might have missed” but the Falcon in the comics is like a product of the 70s (check out the disco-tastic costumes he has worn). Of note, he was the first African American superhero (Black Panther doesn’t count- he’s not American). He had a pet falcon named Redwing, he was a pimp who had his memories altered by the cosmic cube, and had a random flight suit. At one point he got Black Panther to hook him up with like cyber wings and stuff. I actually like the reboot quite a bit- but I think he was a little shoehorned in there.

 

Kill List
So I didn’t get to see ALL the names on the list of people the automated helicarriers were targeting as dangerous people- once the DVD hits I’m sure we will see some interesting names on the list but I DO remember that Tony Stark and the President (in the Marvel movie universe) being listed.

 

Black Widow
So there was a few interesting lines from her in this movie. She keeps talking about how she’s adopted too many different personas in her life as a spy and she doesn’t know who she is anymore. This is kind of fun because, in the comics, she was basically brainwashed and psychologically conditioned and doesn’t really have a clear memory of her past. I wonder if that’s still in play.

Also cool little side note from The Avengers: Hawkeye and her become romantically involved in the comics and that is one of the reasons she defects from Russia to the USA.

 

Baron Von Strucker
That dude with the monical in that end credits is Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. Another Avenger villain.

 

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch
Finally, the big one in the end credit scene is Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. They are two big-name mutants (Magneto’s kids) and some of the earliest members of the Avengers. There is a story behind this though. Since Fox owns the rights to X-Men movies, Marvel can’t put mutants in their movie. The ONE catch however is that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch showed up in the Avengers a lot. This means they fall into both categories and thus Marvel can use them in their upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. The end scene credits suggest they are going to get their powers from experimentation by Baron Von Strucker’s guys and might involve the infinity stones or at least Loki’s chitauri scepter.

Fun fact, Scarlet Witch hooks up with a living robot known as “The Vision” after joining the Avengers and is responsible for the weirdness that happened in the “House of M” storyline.