The new Johnny Storm

As a comic book fanboy, I have the great responsibility to weigh in on the Johnny Storm casting in the 2015 Fantastic Four movie. But first, some recent history about other black casting in superhero movies.

Wesley Snipes as Blade. (You knew that the original comic book Blade was white, didn’t you?) I remember what I thought of the Blade movie years ago: “It is amazing how good a movie turns out when you get good special effects, a good script, and a REALLY good leading actor.” Snipes GOT IT, the internally tortured warrior. He even scared me a bit when he had to drink blood to live. Oh, yeah!

Michael Clarke Duncan as The Kingpin (Daredevil). The Kingpin is a man-mountain, a whale who can bench-press other whales. Duncan was BORN to play the Kingpin. He had the SIZE, the MUSCLES, the acting chops, he even had the shaved head! Too bad the weak script did not give him much to work with, even the best actors can’t fix that. (At least Daredevil was not Catwoman bad.)

Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury (The Avengers, Iron Man). The movie Nick can’t be the Marvel comic book version, who fought in World War II, and thus in our time, would make a mummy look spry. And no, the movie Nick should NOT age Wolverine-slow, Wolverine already does that! And he should not have been frozen until our time, Captain America already did the man-out-of-his-time thing. What was needed was a military commander who can stare down the toughest of supervillains with just one eye. Samuel Jackson GETS IT. As Spider-Man said of Luke Cage, Sam’s Nick Fury is ten different kinds of cool.

Idris Elba as Heindell, the Asgardian guardian (Thor and Thor 2). I am Swedish-American, so white that if I stood shirtless by a bright light you could vaguely see my intestines, or at least the fat in my pot belly. So I am qualified to say if a darker-skinned Asgardian doesn’t bug me, it shouldn’t bug you. Also, Anthony Hopkins (Odin) is Welsh/British, and thus wouldn’t know pickled herring from sushi. As for Heindell, Idris GETS IT. He embodies the ETERNAL SENTINEL. His eyes and attitude reflect not just the universe, but several parallel universes as well.

And now, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm. I want the brother/sister dynamic between Johnny Storm and Sue Storm. Easy peasy to do: just say that he (or sister Sue, it don’t matter!) was adopted at an early age. Johnny and Sue grew up together, bro/sis love each other, and get on each other’s nerves. There should have been more of that in the other FF movie. I bet Jordan will do the Johnny Storm lovable hot-head well, that was one of the few good things in the 2005 FF movie. As well as Michael Chiklis GETTING IT as Ben Grimm.

So I’m worried about other casting for the 2015 FF movie. Jamie Bell as Ben “The Thing” Grimm? Jamie is not a beefy Bronx quarterback, he’s a strip of British beef jerky. Miles Teller as Reed Richards? His sideburns should be grey, instead he looks like he started shaving last week. Is Hollywood going for a boy-band look? Kate Mara looks okay, her acting resume looks very good. But my Spider Sense is tingling. I’ll wait for the reviews.

P.S. FF scriptwriters, I beg you. Please, please, PLEASE don’t turn Doctor Doom into a silver-spoon brat again!

P.P.S The Alicia in the 2005 FF movie was an improvement on the comic book version. It shoulda been her in the FF movie sequel that turned the Silver Surfer to the good.

P.P.P.S. Say, maybe the name should be Johnny STROM! (I made that typo a few times typing this post.)

I added some essays.

Click “Essays” in the main menu. Or click below.

How a T-shirt conquered Concord.

My review of the Catwoman movie. I believe for a while, us fanboys would say of a not-so-good superhero movie, “It was bad, but it wasn’t Catwoman bad.”

How I met Weird Al Yankovic.

A tantalizing little bit of Holly’s Super Bad Hair Day short story.

I just put some of Holly’s upcoming story onto my Upcoming Stories page. Check it out. Get your cash ready to spend, all 99 cents of it. (That’s the going rate for a short story, I think.) And, I hope, get ready to laugh.

Now I know what Stan Lee meant when he said of Peter Parker (Spider-Man): “I just can’t resist torturing the poor guy.”

More Holly art!!! YAY!!!!!!

Batton Lash sent more art today. I really like how he has brought Holly to life. The face, the eyebrows, WOW.

I asked that the trunk line on the costume be lowered a little bit. One of my running gags is that Holly’s costume rides up her rear once in a while, ooo, she HATES that. But normally, no exposed cheeks (unlike so many superheroine costumes nowadays), so I figured the trunk line should be a little lower. Now, behold the art, and ENJOY! I know I have!

I am a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty pied piper.

I got eight followers since I switched to WordPress some weeks ago. I have visited their websites, and I like what I have seen.

A shoutout to ThyCriticMan and Jodie Llewellyn in particular. Jodie for posting about writing AND posting more than I do. And ThyCritic (is that your first name?) for his movie/tv reviews. Check out his review of the Legend of Hercules. Reminds me of the third-from-the-last paragraph in Roger Ebert’s review of North.

I have to figure out how to get more followers for two reasons: it would be good for selling ebooks, and it points me to very interesting bloggers.

P.S. I also have to figure out how to show more love to my followers. Right now, I am kinda tired, but don’t think I am not thinking of ALL of you! Thanks!

“I have never done this before.”

I am very close to putting my superheroine Holly’s story about her bad hair day out on Amazon, Smashwords, and whatever else works. (Batton Lash will be sending me the nice cover art.)

If you do not count the Holly short story in the Seeing Past Sickness book (see my published page or Scripting Change), this is my first time self-publishing. I am reminded of Data in “The Best of Both Worlds,” the super-duper fiber optic cables connected from his head to a Borgified Captain Picard. Data was asked when his connection to the Borg should be severed. His reply?

“I do not know. I have never done this before.”

It will be interesting.

Do I really wanna do this?

I got the email notice from the San Diego Comic Con: pre-registration is tomorrow morning. (As opposed to the regular online sale later this year, for those who did not have tix from 2013.)

Do I really want to do this? It was really frustrating last year. And I got lousy tickets (Thursday and Sunday?!?!), and I did not go. And it’s getting so CROWDED, HUGE lines for nearly EVERYTHING.

Can I afford the major $$$$ for food, gas, and hotel? Can I even get a hotel reservation at this late date? Can my 2001-year, 250,000-mile Honda Civic still make the trek from the SF Bay to Slam Diego without exploding? (Bet it would be a cool comic book sound effect, like BTK-TK-TUK-GLUNKLE-BMMMF-THHHUH-B-B-B-BRRROOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!)

Oh, heck, I’ll do it. The tickets themselves are not much money. And I can always bow out of the hotel/gas/food end later and return the tickets. But one of these years, I’m gonna sell stuff behind a table, instead of being a fanboy sellout, um, a guy waiting in way-too-long lines, uh, old geek trying to take pics of Power Girl cosplayers, um, I need to write more Super Holly Hansson stories until I have enough to stack on a selling table.

UPDATE: I did it. A four-day ticket (no preview night). I have some months to decide if I can still do this. I know, I’ll buy a lottery ticket! Nah, I have a better chance of writing a bestseller novel.

Look to the sidebar.

I added links to where you can find Holly’s first story: “Handicapped Bodies, Super Hearts!” And you’ll notice the Published Stories page, where I discuss it in more detail, and have all the links where you can buy the anthology with Holly’s first published story.

No, this story is not where Holly is at the barber, I have not published that short story yet. In fact, Holly’s first published story has Holly with a yellow cape instead of red. (Ooo, a collector’s item, quick, buy it now!)