Concept Corner: Avantasia The Metal Opera

I've been playing coy long enough. I covered Operation: mindcrime and called it one of the greatest metal concept albums ever. I even covered one of Ayreon's albums, with just a mention of its long supposed rival metal project. That's right, today we cover the other biggest power metal collaboration project, Avantasia.

Concept Corner: Avantasia - The Metal Opera

Avantasia is a project created by Tobias Sammet, the lead singer and songwriter of Edguy, a German power metal band. Avantasia released its first album, The Metal Opera in 2001. This and the next album, The Metal Opera Part II share an explicit story, while subsequent releases either had a much more subtle story or none at all. Like Ayreon, this project collects singers and musicians from across the metal genre, though Avantasia has a few distinctions from Ayreon in that department. Lucassen's project, at least in the beginning, tended to feature less well-known musicians, which is commendable for finding more obscure talent. Avantasia took a different route, finding the all-stars of the metal community right out of the gate, even bringing Michael Kiske, legendary singer for the band Helloween, back into his first metal project since leaving Helloween. For a Helloween fan, this was the Holy Grail.

The story is communicated almost entirely through liner notes in the lyric book, and let me tell you, it's a doozy! There are a couple instrumentals with light speaking parts and there's plenty to gather from the music, but I wasn't aware of the whole story until I recently knuckled down and read all of it. You'll understand why in a bit.

The End of the MCU As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

As the prophesy foretold, yet another iteration of Spider-Man looks like it's going down the drain. As Deadline reported and not a single person is unaware of now, the deal between Sony and Disney to share the film rights to Spider-Man has ended. In broad strokes, this means no more Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which, more than anything else, I think is pretty funny.

In an uncharacteristic move, I never ended up publishing reviews of Spider-Man: Homecoming or Far From Home. By the time I collected my thoughts on Homecoming, it was a little too late for anyone to care, and Far From Home had the whole "ENDGAME SPOILERS OH NO" problem. So for the sake of context, here are my thoughts on those two films as a whole.

They were okay films, certainly nothing outrageously wrong from a filmmaking standpoint. Like a lot of Marvel movies, they were fine. Nothing fancy in the mechanics, like camera work or style; if you've seen a Marvel movie you know what I mean. But as Spider-Man movies, they were not good. Spider-Man as a character lost much of what he had in the comics and other adaptations. He was like a sidekick, more or less, trying to impress Iron Dad in Homecoming, and taking orders from Fury to become Iron Boy in Far From Home. Everything that made Spider-Man special and important to me didn't survive the transition. These films felt more like Iron Man 4 and 5 than a reboot of Spider-Man. Where was his independent nature, his man-against-the-world struggle? Where was the working class perspective on this superhero nonsense? All gone. He was provided everything he needed by a rich man, even after said patron died. They even went so far as to homage the first Iron Man in Far From Home, as if to say, "Don't worry everyone, we have a new Iron Man." Spider-Man is not Iron Man. Not even close. I'm honestly surprised that distinction needed to be made more than once, like everyone didn't figure out it was a bad idea after Slott's Parker Industries comic run.

That's not even mentioning the supporting cast, which I found either annoying or superfluous. Each one is named after a legacy character, like Ned Leeds or Flash Thompson, but bears a shallow and mismatched resemblance to their namesake. Flash is a mathlete instead of a football player, but he hates Peter Parker and loves Spider-Man anyway. MJ is a counterculture misanthrope with one tone of voice, but her and Peter fall in love anyway. Ned is just Ganke Lee from Ultimate Spider-Man. As I've detailed before they all seemed scattered, unable to be the characters we know, but not allowed to be different ones either. It was frustrating in a way only someone who obsesses about Spider-Man can understand.

Hopefully that provides some context for when I say: I'm glad this Disney/Sony divorce is happening. My article railing against it in the first place was astonishingly accurate. I just didn't call that Spider-Man would replace Iron Man. He did just sort of appear with little explanation, and they had to change that iteration so much he was barely recognizable. Suffice it to say I disliked the direction they were going with him. The Sony-only venture Into the Spider-Verse was such a massive triumph that it almost washes away Amazing Spider-Man 2. Even the first Amazing Spider-Man was a good movie, and I will die on that hill. Everyone seems adamant to point out that Sony has a terrible track-record with the character, but I like all of those films more than the Marvel ones. Did we all forget Raimi's Spider-Man 2? Spider-Verse proves that Sony can go weird with it, which as far as I'm concerned is worth way more than another boilerplate Marvel film. Maybe someone could actually take some risks again, instead of dipping their toes in the water but ultimately playing it safe. Either give me Flash Thompson, or don't, none of this halfway business.

Not to mention Disney losing a property should be seen as a win by the great mass of moviegoers. Is anyone else terrified by the complete hegemony Disney has over the entertainment landscape? Marvel, Star Wars, classic Disney canon, and they just keep getting more, what with the Fox buyout that occurred recently. They recently released the lineup for Disney+, one of the many many streaming services about to release, meant to desperately claw for a piece of that Netflix cash. It's almost as bad as the Phase III plan they announced back in 2015. But the twist is, that's just one of the franchises they own! There's a separate one for Star Wars, for classic Disney properties, the Simpsons, they even got the goddamn Muppets. Nothing else illustrates in such stark detail the stranglehold Disney has over a wide swath of once-independent properties.

I have very little faith that Deadpool (a film nearly universally beloved) could've been made if Disney owned the character from the beginning. How about Logan? A sequel to a family-friendly franchise, instead rated R and living up to every inch of that rating. Could we ever get an R-rated Avengers film? This isn't how Disney works. Kid-friendly to a fault, and despite making billions of dollars they play it safe time and time again. I'm glad at least something I enjoy isn't eaten up by the conglomerate that thought The Last Jedi was a good idea.

Is Sony going to continue casting Tom Holland? Will they just reboot the whole thing again? Who knows! The only one here we can really pity is Tom Holland in the event he's recast, but then again, nobody really shed a tear when Andrew Garfield got fired. Somewhat troubling is the notion that this might foretell a film version of One More Day, where Mephisto shows up to undo Spider-Man's identity issues, and maybe make everyone forget he exists entirely. At least this time the retcon would work for me. I'm glad I have no idea what's going to happen! I'm sick of superhero movies being the equivalent of the constant tiresome crossover events in comics!

Then again, this may all be a moot point. There's always the possibility of new negotiations, nothing's set in stone. Obviously at this point you know I'd be disappointed if this was reversed. We'll just have to wait and see what the full implications are to this, but I'm a Spider-Man fan, this ain't my first reboot, and it won't be the last.

Man of Steel Review

So guess what I just saw. It's that movie about the guy who flies around, wears a blue suit and punches stuff. Not saving people, but I'll mention that later. It's time for:

Movie Review: Man of Steel

Okay. So. I'm not even quite sure where to begin. So the first part of this movie was an incredibly long opening sequence on Aiur Krypton where it takes far too long for Jor-El to send Kal-El off to Earth, and a bunch of other stuff to happen. That's one big problem with this movie, everything just takes way too friggin' long. I should not be dreading a fight scene in a superhero movie, but by the time I got to the final fight, I was so sick of them. A large portion of the movie is pointless fight scenes that just go on and on. At one point, I asked myself why Superman Kent was fighting two Kryptonians in Smallville. I couldn't come up with a good reason. At one point Kent fights a giant robot that makes scary arms come out of it, and I didn't know why he was taking so long with that either.

The biggest problem with this movie, however, was Superman. Well, the dude they decided to call Superman right at the end but never really earned the name. He saved, maybe, 10 people in this movie. Eight, really, if you count the two people he pretty much killed. Metropolis was leveled and probably thousands of people died. How is that a Superman movie?! At one point, Kent and Lois make out for a bit in the Metropolis ruins, when there are definitely dozens of people trapped in the surrounding rubble, but don't worry that can wait until Kent and Zod fly around and punch each other for the next hour.

The whole tone of the movie wasn't what a Superman movie should ever be. On the surface it was pretty much any other action movie. For a minute I thought they switched the last act with a Transformers movie. Jonathan "Never Save Anybody" Kent was the worst Super-father ever. So in a flashback, Clark saves a busful of children after it falls into a river, and the mother of a kid in it starts asking the Kents questions. Ol' Pa talks to Clark about it, telling him he shouldn't have done that. Clark says, "Should I have just let them die?!" And his dear old Dad, the foundation for Superman's unflinching morals, says, "Maybe..."

Let me say that again, Superman's dad suggested that he let a busful of children die! Then he dies saving a dog in a tornado for no reason. The whole movie makes a point of expressing that saving people's lives is less important than hiding the fact that you're an alien from everyone forever.

Lemme talk about some other characters real quick. The villains were evil-bland. They had suits that looked like a gothy high school student's doodles, with the face masks almost exactly resembling skulls. Zod tried really hard to kill Earth just because, and expected Kal-El to help him because he must be Raditz or something.

Lois Lane was just sort of there, without much of a personality either way. She did some stuff, but it doesn't matter that she did it, it could have been anyone else in her position and it would have come out the same.

There was a bunch of techno-science mumbo-jumbo about Kryptonian DNA and it's in Clark's cells, but that part was just a reason for Zod to want to kill Clark, and I don't really care about it.

I was aghast when Kal-El killed Zod. Not "Oh my god what an unexpected move!" aghast, I mean, this was "This is a mortal sin" aghast. Superman is essentially Find A Better Way-man. Superman is supposed to be that moral guide, who doesn't take the easy way out, who always does what's right. But in this he just kills a dude, feels super bad about it for a bit, but then he's over it.

Is this the Superman we have? One whose movie has a six or seven figure body count? The one who, when it seems like he's faced with no choice but to kill, kills anyway? One who is told, specifically, not to save people by his father, who then revokes ever being his father? So many things in this movie did not make it a good movie, and so many more things made it a terrible Superman movie.

The fight scenes were too long, many characters were one-sided, the body count was huge, and it was just way too damn pessimistic for a Superman movie. It didn't even do pessimism well,
it was sad and pointless for no reason. This was a bad start to a Superman franchise, since, you know, they already greenlit it, and a bad start to the planned Justice League franchise. This movie was bad, and I feel bad.

NYCC 2012: Superior Spider-Man Preview

Yes! What you've been waiting for! I attended the panel entitled: Marvel NOW!: Amazing Spider-Man and Beyond. What's Beyond you ask? Well, it's the Superior Spider-Man.

Yes, after Amazing Spider-Man #700 and the cataclysmic events within, the Amazing Spider-Man series will be cancelled, to be replaced by Superior Spider-Man next January. Oh, and the kicker, this Superior Spider-Man is not Peter Parker.

When I first heard this, I was livid! How could they kill off another Spider-Man?! Not another Death of Spider-Man! I couldn't take that. But, you know, after the panel, I think my fears are somewhat assuaged.

First of all, Dan Slott and Steve Wacker made it clear that Peter not being Spider-Man does NOT mean he is dying. What it does mean is still up in the air, but I think I can say with confidence that Peter Parker will still be with us in this Superior series.

Dan Slott also assured the people that this new Spider-Man will not be some random asshole (CoughMilesMoralescough) but instead someone with "Spider-Man pedigree." That alone makes me less apprehensive about the storyline.

See, with that, it can still be about continuing Peter's story, especially if the new Spider-Man is still connected to Peter. In Ultimate, Peter's story was simply aborted, ended without a solid conclusion, to be replaced by someone we've never seen before.

One criticism that seems common about Superior Spider-Man is that people seem to think it will be "grim and gritty" while in the press release, people like Slott said it would be "dark and weird". I can understand the jumping to conclusions, but in explaining what they meant by "dark and weird" they cited stories like The Death of Gwen Stacy, and Kraven's Last Hunt, which are quintessential Spidey stories.

All that, combined with the fact that I could tell that Dan Slott still really loves Spider-Man, puts me more at ease about this project. I'm eager to see what they're doing, and I only hope Dan Slott doesn't pull another New Ways to Die and make me sad.

In other news, Venom is moving to San Franc-- I mean, Philadelphia! Yes, home of the Liberty Bell and some other stuff I guess. I don't mind him moving from New York, but I really thought the Venom series would involve a lot more exciting locales, like Yopilistan or whatever. I'll have to see how the new writer, Cullen Bunn, does.

A new Morbius: The Living Vampire series is starting, as an exploration of the more occult or supernatural horror aspects of the Marvel Universe. I can get behind that, and Morbius seems like a good enough character to follow.

Oh, and SPECULATION TIME: At one point during the Q&A of the panel, one kid asked why they don't make Spider-Man 2099 stories anymore. Steve Wacker and Dan Slott answered in a strange way, "Oh, you like Miguel O'Hara? You think he's a good Spider-Man?" Yeah, see, I think Superior Spider-Man might be some version of Miguel O'Hara. For example, look at the cover, above. See his hands on the wall? They're more smashed in, like he's using claws to climb instead of sticky fingers. I mean, it's purely speculation at this point, but that's half the fun. Some people think it might be Kaine, but since the Scarlet Spider series will continue after ASM #700, I can safely say that's not a reasonable expectation. But who knows, maybe it's Alpha! Oh god, I hope not. Until next time, this is the W Defender!

New York Comic Con Day 1

It's time for W Defender's Comic Con Coverage! Yes, I am at New York Comic Con this year, and things are looking pretty hopping. Today wasn't that busy for me, but I'll just go over what I've seen.

A Look Inside The Batmobile:

This was the premier of a documentary on the Batmobile, all variations of it, which will be on the special Blu-ray of the Dark Knight Rises. It was pretty interesting, to see the design ethos' at work behind each new edition of the Batmobile, from the Adam West version to the Tumbler. Good stuff.

Marvel And DC:

I stopped by the Marvel and DC booths, rather than check out any of the panels they had. At DC they mostly showcased their new fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us. It looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. They had a green screen where you could put yourself on a Justice League or DC Supervillains comic cover, and you got a print. I think mine turned out pretty well.

At Marvel, they mostly focused on their Marvel NOW series, particularly Uncanny Avengers and All-New X-Men. They had their usual Break Into Comics: The Marvel Way panel, which I went to because Mark Bagley and Dan Slott were going to be there.

Tomorrow is a panel on Marvel NOW, specifically the new series, Superior Spider-Man, and that's what I'm really interested in. I'm a bit afraid of what's going to happen with that, but more on that after the panel.

Also, Dan Slott recognized me by my T-shirt and the fact that I was tweeting #DanSlottProblems during the summer. It was fun.

Next time: More NYCC coverage! Hopefully more substantial.

UPDATE: Turns out the Spider-Man panel is on Sunday. Nothing happened on Saturday, we're ignoring that. Check back next time for almost definite bitching about Spider-Man. THIS IS THE W DEFENDER.

The Amazing Spider-Man No Spoiler Review

As you probably all know, I saw The Amazing Spider-Man at the midnight showing, and I was sufficiently impressed! There was a lot I liked, a little I didn't, so let's get right into it.

Andrew Garfield as Peter was well established, though he was less of a science nerd and more of an engineer. It's a bit of a departure from the usual Peter Parker who's all science all the time, he seems less smart and more of just a normal guy. I was a little disappointed at that, especially since the trailers seemed to show that Peter actually used some smarts to do stuff.  Martin Sheen was an amazing Uncle Ben. He had a real, tangible presence on screen, and he actually seemed like the kind of guy who would raise Peter Parker. He didn't just go around giving speeches, he behaved like a real parent would. Rhys Ifans as Curt Conners/The Lizard... Well, we'll get back to him.

Spider-Man himself was handled very well, I think. The webs were mechanical, as I pointed out in one of the trailer previews, which is what I prefer. One of the things I loved most about it, that other people have pointed out, is that he really moves like a spider. There's one scene where he crawls around a bad guy and covers him in a web cocoon. That's really cool. It's something we haven't really seen Spider-Man do, which is why I like this movie so much. It showcases so much of what we haven't seen Spider-Man do before. He quips only slightly more than in the Raimi films, but honestly at this point I'll take what I can get.

Storywise, I was pretty happy with it. Romance plays a fairly large role, but really, it's always been a pretty big part of Spider-Man. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy deviated from comic-Gwen in that she actually did stuff, instead of just being baggage Peter had to deal with. The love story was handled well, I'd say better than the original movie's romance plot.

As for the rest, you probably saw from trailers that Spider-Man clashes with the police, which I enjoyed. The main problem is with the main villain, The Lizard. I mean, it's Mad Scientist Lizard. I don't think there's a way you can do that where it's not a bit silly. You could tell Ifans was doing his best to keep it serious, but it's a humanoid scientist lizard. He had to work with what he had.

Some shots were familiar, like the usual swinging scenes, and the New York overhead shots.  The first-person effect wasn't used as much as I thought it would be, and it might be a good thing, since if it were overused, I think it just would've caused motion-sickness.

Overall, the movie just shows a different type of origin for our wall-crawling friend. He's not exactly the same Peter Parker we knew, and things don't go the same way. It had a darker tone with a lot of nailbiters, but some parts managed to have comedy, and of course you have the New Yorkers Unite scene that gives you the warm fuzzy feelings.

So the Amazing Spider-Man gets the W Defender seal of approval! I give it about an 8.5/10. If you want spoilers and the like, I'm planning on watching it again soon and writing a more in-depth review. I like it now, but if you had asked me what I thought of Spider-Man 3 after only seeing it at midnight, I would've said I liked that too, so my judgement at these showings may be skewed. So, grain of salt, at least until I've watched it again.

Superhero Music

So recently I found a song by nerd-band Kirby Krackles called Web-Slinger/Hope-Bringer. Being as crazy about Spider-Man as I am, I loved it. It also got me thinking about superhero songs.

Really, if that's what you're looking for, nerd-bands are probably your best bet, but once in a while it breaks into something close to mainstream. For example, there's Five For Fighting's song Superman and the lesser known Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim's Big Ego. The first thing I notice about these two is that they're about DC heroes who traditionally are not written in the same vein as the song. Superman is the perfect superhuman who saves lives, and actually thinks flying is pretty fun. Barry Allen, the Flash, can experience time just as slow as the rest of us, and has a very successful relationship with his wife, Iris. I notice people tend to give DC heroes these character flaws that are more inherent in Marvel heroes. Spider-Man was written as poor in the first place, nobody needed a song to elucidate that. In a way, these songs present depth for an alternate interpretation of the character that serves to make the original more interesting. With the Flash, you're left wondering if this is how he feels in-between the comic book storylines, or if Superman is really digging for Kryptonite.

For that reason, the songs don't usually work for Marvel heroes, because the problem is already exposited. Ben Grimm is a horrifying rock thing, Iron Man is an alcoholic, it's all there without much need for further exposition. Of course, sometimes a band can bring to light more obscure facts about one of them.

In a way, I like it better when it's not just a nerd band making a song about a hero they really like. That way we all get a new look at things, instead of a song whose main point narrows down to "Batman is the best". I mean, I already knew that. Bringing music into your life, this is the W Defender!

I'm the One That's Cool, and Nerd Bitterness

I don't want to end my streak of random rambling here, so I'll just assume you've all seen Felicia Day's new music video. It's called I'm The One That's Cool.



No, no you're not.

Okay, let me expand a bit more on that. See, from my experience, the lessons nerds are supposed to learn in high school are:

1. High School doesn't really matter and
2. Being cool never mattered

The thing is, that's not what happens. When someone is a geek or nerd or what have you in high school, people don't seem to stress that being cool is actually a pretty stupid goal and you should just do what you enjoy. Instead they keep telling you that all the cool kids are going to have shitty jobs and you're probably going to be their boss. What kind of moral is that?!

It all comes down to Nerd Bitterness. Yeah, high school sucked. High school sucks for everyone. I think too many people who focused on nerdy things back then are just looking around for the chance to turn around and make faces at the "cool kids" because somehow they're better now. Even though the geeks are free from the jocks, they still let jocks who don't even exist anymore define what they do.

Let's assume for a minute it is "cool" to be a nerd now. Well, now everyone's complaining about "fake geek girls". To be honest, I'm not even sure what that really means. I have never met one, but people get really pissed off about it. Does that even happen with anything else? Are there enough people who fake being into football that real football fans start getting angry? Again, we have that Nerd Bitterness here. Instead of just focusing on doing the things they enjoy, nerds are busy policing the bounds of nerdity. "She's not a real geek! She didn't get teased in high school! Let me go ridicule her!” For the longest time, it wasn’t as socially acceptible to be into any of this geeky stuff. Now geeks feel like others have to pay their dues in order to be accepted into the higher echelon of nerdery.

Inside jokes about sci-fi or RPGs used to be ways to feel part of a group, now we’re using them to exclude others from the group. Just like it never mattered who is cool, it does not matter who’s a “real geek”. If anything, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just keep doing what you enjoy and sharing it with others. Trying desperately to make sure everyone’s had a terrible experience being a nerd before you’ll accept them just ruins things for everyone. Besides, if a girl’s willing to fake being into comics for me, I’ll take it. Breaking down the barriers, this is the W Defender.