-Esther and I saw Captain America
-We figured that spending an hour talking about and around the movie and the character would be neat
-Good movie, wasn’t it?
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-Here comes a new challenger!
-See you, space cowboy!
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It’s kind of a bad time for my writing. All my go-to articles have been running dry. Jeph Loeb stopped writing Ultimate Marvel comics, so no more of that. I’ve finished writing about Venom. I don’t have too many wrestling PPV shows to rank and review. Just as bad, Marvel has stopped releasing novelizations of their movies. I can no longer know the story of movies in the Avengers Saga a month or so before they’re released. Because of that, I can’t do any informative lists that show all the scenes that were taken out of the original version of the screenplay.
Or can I? While yes, it appears that there isn’t any novelization for Captain America: The First Avenger, that doesn’t mean I’m empty handed. I called in some favors and got to see the extended original cut of the movie. Oh, man. You won’t believe some of the stuff they got rid of! Mostly because it’s all lies.
An entire hour was cut. Removed scenes include:
– A scene where pre-experiment Steve Rogers gets sand kicked in his face at the beach. He meant to gamble a stamp and send a couple bucks to Charles Atlas to make him a man, but got distracted by news of Pearl Harbor.
– When playing hangman with Bucky, he had only one turn left and only the first letter revealed. After biting on his pencil for a moment, he asked if that letter stood for France. Lucky guess.
– When talking with Erskine, the two of them had a long, hearty laugh about how Disney had released a cartoon where Donald Duck was a Nazi. Steve kept insisting, “This is a thing that actually exists! Look it up! Donald is saluting Hitler and everything!” He later had this same conversation with Colonel Phillips, Peggy and even Red Skull. I’m not sure exactly why Marvel would remove this reference.
– When Red Skull steals the first Cosmic Cube and shatters it on the ground for being a forgery, he then curses a blue streak and realizes that he just busted up the real thing after all. Much of his villain plot is based on him trying to find glue and tape, which was scarce in Nazi Germany.
– Much like Arnim Zola was introduced via his face reflected off a monitor, the character of Helmut Zemo was there too. He was introduced by putting his hands behind his back and his shoeless feet on the table while the shot lingered on his purple socks.
Last Wednesday saw the release of Alpha Flight #0.1, the first in what appears to be a second wave of comics in Marvel’s Point One Initiative. Revealed first in late October and making its debut on the shelves in February, Marvel decided to start focusing on certain issues of their various series as jumping on points. It’s similar, at least to me, to DC’s One Year Later comics that existed after the events of Infinite Crisis half a decade ago, only without the shakeup factor of it all. They simply give us a bunch of $2.99 comic issues that claim to be a great place for a new reader to start with and move forward.
I’ve seen people review the Point One books in batches, comparing what worked and what didn’t. I even thought of doing that myself, but then I took a second to notice that it would be pretty unnecessary. What reason could I possibly have to review those? For instance, I read Jeff Parker’s Hulk as is and enjoy the hell out of it. So of course I would love Hulk #30.1. I’m already on board for the series. To me, it’s just another great issue. I’m not the intended audience for such a review.
But you know who would be good for this kind of thing? People who would read Hulk #30.1 despite never reading the 29 prior issues. Same for Avengers #12.1 and Wolverine #5.1 and so on. If this is Marvel’s attempt to bring in new readers, I need to get me a hold of some new readers! Namely, I need a crew from the DC side of the tracks. It was a long and tortuous search (fifteen seconds, give or take), but I figured on a perfect trio for this experiment.
First up is Esther Inglis-Arkell, the Clobberella of the 4thletter! New Justice Team. Since she and I have had shockingly minimal interaction over the years on this site and she stands firm on DC ground, Esther was ideal for this. Joining Esther is Was Taters, a friend to this site for all the work she regularly does for This Week in Panels. Lastly, I introduce my real life good buddy Andrew, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the past five and a half years.
Before we get started, let’s hear from our guinea pigs.
I’ll try to keep it short here. Long, long day for me and I’m pretty damn tired. Though I did catch the big WWE Extreme Rules PPV. After the show, newly-crowned champion John Cena addressed the crowd to tell them the news that Osama Bin Laden’s officially dead. All I can think of when seeing the footage is that scene from the Simpsons where it’s the last day of school and the kids are running out the building, celebrating summer. Then a teacher runs out with an open book in hand.
“Wait a minute! You didn’t learn how World War II ended!”
“………”
“WE WON!”
“YAAAAY! USA! USA! USA!”
I’m helped out this time around by Was Taters and Space Jawa. Enjoy the naked Spider-Woman.
Avengers #12.1
Brian Michael Bendis and Bryan Hitch
Batman Incorporated #5
Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette
Hello, everybody. This week I’m helped out by David Brothers, Space Jawa and Luis.
In a couple days, I’m taking off to Las Vegas for a bit, but that won’t put a damper on the quantity of posts. In a few hours, I’ll have a big review article going up. Tomorrow I’ll have something really cool to share with you all and while I’m gone, a couple Mortal Marathon guest articles should be popping up. Plus that one guy and that one girl will probably still be posting stuff as usual.
Anyhow, panels.
Batgirl #20
Bryan Q. Miller and Ramon Bachs
Batman and Robin #22
Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
Before I get to the panels, I’d like to point out that Rand Hall, a reader inspired by my old Top 100 What If Countdown list to read every single What If issue has finished his own list of his 25 favorite issues of the series. A great choice for #1, which would definitely make my top 10 when I redo my list. Maybe even top 5. If anything, I consider it my all-time favorite Dr. Doom story.
I’m only joined by Space Jawa this week. He only covered one comic, but also included the backup and it starts with A, so he pretty much conquers the above-the-cut part of the article. Well played.
Annihilators #2
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Tan Eng Huat
Annihilatiors #2 (backup)
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Timothy Green II
Welp, I’m back from watching this year’s Wrestlemania. If you missed it, it was a really bad show that featured the burials of Sheamus (US Champion), Daniel Bryan, Alberto Del Rio (Royal Rumble winner), Wade Barrett (Intercontinental Champion), Heath Slater (Tag Team Champion), Justin Gabriel (other Tag Team Champion), Ezekiel Jackson, Jack Swagger, John Morrison and Dolph Ziggler. Why push what should be the future of the business on the show of the year when you can instead have Triple H and Undertaker boringly masturbate for 45 minutes?
At least things turned out well for Cody Rhodes. Good on you, Rey Mysterio.
This week I’m joined by Was Taters, Space Jawa and VersasoVantare in a week where I lose both Remender’s Punisher and Deadpool Team-Up. This has not been a good week for my hobbies.
Avengers #11
Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr.
Captain America #616
Ed Brubaker, Mike Deodato and many others
Good evening or morning or whenever you’re reading this. This week I’m helped out by David Brothers and Space Jawa.
Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #5
Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert
Batman Incorporated #4
Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham
Hey, if there’s anyone out there who digs this ThWiP series and has some graphic expertise, would you be able to whip up some kind of opening graphic? I could really use one.
Today I’m joined by Was Taters and Space Jawa. Jawa wanted me to mention that he covered the Rocket Raccoon and Groot backup from Annihilators because it’s superior to the main story. He isn’t the first person I’ve heard that from.
Azrael ended this week. I’ll miss you, you crazy, religious hybrid of Moon Knight, Ghost Rider and Venom 🙁
Annihilators #1
Dan Abbnett, Andy Lanning, and Tan Eng Haut
Annihilators #1 (backup)
Dan Abbnett, Andy Lanning, and Timothy Green II
Here’s some panels I liked from Jack Kirby’s Captain America 200:
No deep thoughts, no examinations… I just liked the way they looked and wanted to share them.
Related: here are some people at HiLoBrow talking about several more Kirby panels. It’s a fun read.
