Comic Book Roundtable: May 4th, 2008

Written May 8, 2008 by Mike Haynes

This past Sunday, CrackerBob, (For The Love of Comics) AJ, (Frequent POA commenter) and I took part in what will become a possible weekly IM chat about anything and everything comics related. In the inaugural session, we talked, among other things, about the Iron Man movie and Secret Invasion.

Here’s a couple sections from the session. I’ve cleaned up the spelling a little bit and reorganized some of our conversation to make sense of things but, for the most part, it went down a little something like this:

Mike Haynes:
Alrighty. First up is the Iron Man movie. Firstly, what did everyone think?

AJ:
Phenomenal.

Mike Haynes:
I agree. Went in thinking it would be mediocre. Walked out thinking that it’s easily one of the best Marvel movies to date.

CrackerBob:
Better than I even began to imagine. It had plenty of fan service details, but nothing that would take away from it’s mainstream appeal.

AJ:
Also, the acting was top notch all around.

Mike Haynes:
Speaking of acting, was Robert Downey Jr. the best casting ever?

AJ:
Oh man, amazing.

CrackerBob:
Yeah, Downey ran away with it, as I expected, but everyone was excellent in it. I think they cast with an eye on the long term… Howard can easily carry the focus on War Machine, as can Paltrow and Favreau with any increased exposure on their characters.

Mike Haynes:
So, I think we can all agree that Iron Man is a fantastic movie that couldn’t possibly disappoint comic fans.

AJ:
Agreed. Definitely.

CrackerBob:
Some people apparently disagree with us but they’re obviously wrong.

- - - - -

CrackerBob:
Ok, comics. I apparently am in a very small minority that was underwhelmed by DC Universe 0 and Secret Invasion #1.

Mike Haynes:
Secret Invasion #1 was great. I loved it. Much better start than Civil War and I’m really excited for the second issue.

AJ:
Secret Invasion #1 surprised me enough to pick up issue 2.

CrackerBob:
I didn’t hate SI 1, but… it just wasn’t enough for me. I’ll read the whole thing of course.

Mike Haynes:
You’ll have to. Nothing will make sense if you don’t!

CrackerBob:
I generally don’t enjoy first issues though so I don’t attach too much significance to being underwhelmed by it.

AJ:
I must say though, if the end of SI #1 is true, and everyone really is a Skrull I may be angry. Scratch that. I WILL be angry.

CrackerBob:
There may be one or two real people off of the ship, but I think they’re mostly Skrulls.

- - - - -

AJ:
So, what do you think they’re going to do with everyone who’s been body snatched?

Mike Haynes:
They’re probably studying them.

CrackerBob:
I think so. Keeping them in stasis or something so that they can keep working on replicating them.

AJ
As long as Jarvis is okay!

- - - - -

CrackerBob:
Speaking of writers not working, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH JEPH LOEB?!?!

Mike Haynes:
Besides ruining everything, not much.

CrackerBob:
I’m hoping he gets his groove back with Captain America: White.

Mike Haynes:
If he doesn’t, it’s over for him.

It was a really great time and we all had a lot of fun talking comics amongst ourselves. If you’ve got some free time on your hands next Sunday, feel free to jump into the mix and speak your mind about all the latest news from the world of comics!

Next Comic Book Roundtable:
Sunday May 11th, 2008 @ 7:00pm ET - Skype