Dig Boston and League Podcast Comics Picks of the Week for Wed. August 26, 2015

COMICS

Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate in S.H.I.E.L.D. issue #9 written by Mark Waid. This includes Previously unpublished panels from Jack ‘King’ Kirby inked by S.H.I.E.L.D. master artist Jim Steranko. …On the other side of the fence are our friends at HYDRA! Ever wonder what the workaday life of a HYDRA agent is life? Look no further than Hank Johnson Agent of Hydra #1! Written by Curb Your Enthusiasm executive producer David Mandel, this looks pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. All Marvel Picks of the week wrap up with Nick Spencer’s Ant-Man Last Days (One-Shot). Is it the end of the world? It is still to late to change the name. … Picks this week from LeaguePodcast.com!

MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER S1E6 “A SIN TO ERR” (review) AT FORCES OF GEEK

Stacey’s reviews continue.

In the sixth episode of Agent Carter we find out more about the formation of group known as Leviathan as Peggy (Hayley Atwell) interviews a Dr. Ivchenko (Ralph Brown) at the S.S.R. office. She drills Ivchenko about why they may choose to train young girls to be deadly weapons instead of the typically chosen young men.

While she finds these reasons very relatable, she has more suspicions about who killed Agent Krzeminski and believes there is a connection.



She brings her theory to Chief Dooley (Shea Whigham) and much to her surprise, he gives her the go-ahead to follow her hunch that the killer may have been a trained female killer from Leviathan with a vendetta against Howard Stark for being a notorious womanizer.

We start this episode with Agent Carter hot on the trail of our Golden Age Black Widow, Dottie (Bridget Regan)!

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER S1E5 “The Iron Ceiling” (review) AT FORCES OF GEEK

From the cold open to a young Dottie in ‘Russia, 1937’ to an appearance from Dum-Dum Dugan (Neal McDonough) and his The Howling Commandos, Marvel’s latest Agent Carter is something Jack Kirby himself would be proud of.


Ramping up the action, our strong leading lady Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is entrusted with her first mission — but will our cover girl have her cover blown by the arrogant (and over-the-top sexist) Agent Jack Thompson (Chad Michael Murray) or Agent Souza (Enver Gjokaj)?

In Russia — spoiler warning — they have a Black Widow training program, and the origin of Dottie’s (Bridget Regan) exploits in the last episode. Does it surprise anyone that the Russians used a clip of Walt Disney’s Snow White promising to ‘keep house for you’ to teach the kids English in this all-girl Russian Fight Club? Here we see a younger version of the immersion seen in Showtime’s The Americans flashback sequence!

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A Stacey/Clay review! XO

MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER S1E4 “The Blitzkrieg Button” (review) AT FORCES OF GEEK

Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) remains by his side and on the case. This episode gets a little deeper into the mystery behind the stolen Stark weaponry.

Peggy continues to struggle maintaining her cover as a double agent, all the while carrying out mundane tasks of taking the office lunch orders and still being treated as a secretary in the office.

Agent Carter assists Jarvis (James D’Arcy) by ambushing a warehouse deal with mysterious bad guy Mr. Mink’s lackeys. Peggy reluctantly offers Howard her room as a temporary hideout while she retrieves a particular weapon from the S.S.R. lab at his request.



Chief Dooley (Shea Whigham) is off to Germany to follow up on leads tying Nazis into the Stark weapon case, and questions a Nazi on death row. We may be getting a subtle Boardwalk Empire nod here, the Ratzi’s Colonel’s last name is Mueller — the same as Michael Shannon’s false name on the period drama!



Dooley finds out that the battle in Russia he was researching had already occurred by the time the Nazis had arrived, and that everyone was already dead. He learns later that Howard Stark’s name is on a flight manifest a couple of days after the battle had taken place, deepening the conspiracy even more.

Carter’s desk mate Agent Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) heads down to the docks in the hopes of getting some clues on who called in the stockpile of Stark’s weapons at the end of the last episode. Sousa encounters a couple of vagrants playing a nickel bet card game and suspects that one of them must have seen something.

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Stacey Rizoli is an artist, gamer, comic book fan and feminist living in Boston, MA. Her homegrown Red Queen Crafts produces paintings, signs and hand-made custom flower accessories. She hates the cold weather but keeps warm by staying in and playing video games.  Follow her @redqueencrafts

AGENT CARTER reviews S1 E01, S1 E02, S1 E03 - [GUEST POST] STACEY B. RIZOLI at FORCES OF GEEK

Congrats, Stacey! These are great!

As a long time comic lover, and female, I am very pleased to see that Agent Carter has found a home on ABC.

This show is the perfect balance of action, wit, explosions, social commentary, and touch of humor.   

Personally, I think Agent Carter was an unexpected choice of characters to carry a series from Marvel, with all of The Avengers movies I would have bet money that a Black Widow and/or Hawkeye would have been the next side project (which I would definitely support, for the record)  but I can safety say that this show has far exceeded my expectations.

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CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER REVIEW at FORCES OF GEEK

Review by Clay N Ferno

Produced by Kevin Feige

Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely

Based on Captain America by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, 

Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell,

Toby Jones, Maximiliano Hernández, Garry Shandling, 

Robert Redford, and Samuel L. Jackson

The First Avenger is back in his blockbuster sequel, joining Iron Man and Thor for in-between The Avengers movies solo ventures.  Chris Evans is back as Captain America Steve Rogers, and in contrast to the introduction of the character, the movie is set in present day, after the events in New York in The Avengers.

Flashbacks occur to move the story along, and are welcome callbacks to the WWII story of Cap and Bucky vs. Hydra, but there is much more going on with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and introducing Sam Wilson as Falcon (Anthony Mackie) as the Scooby Gang of espionage S.H.I.E.L.D. is on watch.

Former Community/Arrested Development producer and director team Anthony and Joe Russo add humor to the mix in a subtle way, but more importantly pack so much action and tension into this chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that we hope to see more from them with Cap 3.

While closest to Iron Man conceptually, the flavor of this Marvel Movie is all espionage Cap and Secret Avengers—a combination sure to make comics fans as well as Avengers fans excited, intrigued and headed to the theatre more than once for a taste of this non-stop action.

This is certainly the most meaty of stories and filled with the most Avengers since the franchise took off.

Nick Fury and Black Widow have a lot of screen time, and introduction of Stan Lee and Gene Colan’s Falcon as Captain America’s wingman makes for a great team. While this is still a superhero movie, we are taken to the world that Ed Brubaker established in his run on Cap. Throw in the main, practically unavoidable spoiler that Winter Soldier is in fact Cap’s erstwhile partner in justice Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and you have a complicated past mixed with a technologically advanced future. 

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