Superman, Daredevil and the Fan Boys

Oh, those Fan Boys.

The J Man and I went to see Man of Steel last weekend. We loved it.

As a superhero action movie, it was one of the best we’ve seen in a while. It had that galactic, end-of-the-world threat at its heart – ala The Avengers – with wildly entertaining CGI-based aerial fight scenes that were spectacular and reminded me of the Iron Man movies.

Better than Iron Man, actually.

And the fan boys hated it.

Despised it, to be more accurate.

Even Mark Waid, the current Daredevil writer and a former Superman writer who penned the Birthright limited series (which formed part of the Man of Steel story arc) trashed the movie.

“At its emotional climax, at the moment of Superman’s ultimate victory,” wrote Waid in his blog, “Man of Steel broke my heart. I mean, absolutely snapped it clean in half.”

Tell us how you really feel, Mark.

On the Comic Book Resources website the fan boys took a strip up one side of the film and down the other, taking issue with the needless carnage (with half of Manhattan reduced to rubble, it’s conceivable that many thousands of people died) , the lack of chemistry between Superman and Lois Lane, the corny plot twists, etcetera, etcetera.

A Whatculture blog even called the film The Stupidest Superman Movie Ever. And that’s saying a lot.

I get that the plot has more holes than SpongeBob SquarePants. I share the fan boys’ displeasure with the disaster porn, specifically Superman’s lack of desire to take the fight outside the city to save the lives of the humans he has sworn to protect.

I am less concerned with Superman taking a life, which has most of the fans in a tizzy. But that’s just me.

Maybe if this was a Marvel project I’d be more inclined to nitpick. But this is Superman, a character who can turn a lump of coal into a perfectly cut diamond, simply by squeezing really hard. This is a character that once saved Earth from certain disaster from an incoming asteroid by pushing the planet out of the way.

So I don’t expect much in the way of plot from a Superman movie. Ergo, I wasn’t really disappointed.

We paid extra to see the film in some sort of fancy 3D, with our butts enjoying extra plush seats, so Jake and I just expected to be thoroughly entertained.

And we were. It wasn’t The Avengers, but as an action movie, I give it four stars out of five.

***

Speaking of fan boys, I just finished reading the eight-issue Daredevil mini-series End of Days.

This was a series set about 10 years in the future and kicked off with the brutal  and very public death of  our main character at the hands of Bullseye, with the rest of the series told through the eyes of reporter Ben Urich as he tries to unravel the mysteries of Daredevil’s death.

There were two mysteries to be solved: who or what was Mapone, the word Daredevil said before he died (sending Bullseye spiraling into madness); and who was the mystery Daredevil seen offing bad guys throughout the series?

The series was written by DD veterans Brian Bendis and David Mack with gorgeous artwork by Bill Sienkiewicz and Klaus Janson, who can trace their Hornhead roots back to the Frank Miller days.

And when it was over, the fan boys wrote in to say they hated it.

Liars.

The first six issues were among the best comics I have ever read and the reader comments on the blogs and web sites reflected that. In the seventh issue the ‘mystery Daredevil’ was exposed and while it was a bit underwhelming, it was still a good read.

The final issue gave us the ‘Mapone’ reveal and it sent the fan boys back to the message boards. I wasn’t keen on the final issue either, but I will buy the hardcover collection when it goes on sale this week.

So will most of those fan boys (and girls), their whining notwithstanding.

Now bring us the movie.

Child-eating Couches and Street Cred

It was old, broken, did little more than lay around the apartment and smelled kinda funny. And I’m not talking about me.

I put up with it for a while, but after it showed an appetite for swallowing small children – it almost got my granddaughter more than once – I figured it was time to get rid of it.

I bought a futon instead.

The old couch, a hand-me-down to begin with, had deteriorated badly in the past few months. It still looked good, but the frame was snapped on one side and the springs gave up the ghost eventually as well.

It meant that people sitting on it tended to sink in a little farther than the manufacturers recommendation. In case of six year-old Lauren, that downward trip got deeper and deeper as time went on.

Until one day, she disappeared.

She thought it was funny at first – nothing scares her, anyway – but when there was nothing left of her but the top of her head and one flailing hand she started calling for help.

We were able to pull her to freedom, but in the days that followed the couch started displaying an appetite for bigger prey, namely Lauren’s almost 10 year-old sister Allison, and the J Man, who is 11 and at least 70 pounds.

It was time for the couch to go.

Remembering the hell my friend Reg and I went through getting this mammoth sofa into my apartment, I decided the subtle approach was out. So I borrowed a sledge hammer from work and smashed the damn thing to pieces.

(I’m pretty sure my landlord wouldn’t have been thrilled to know I was wielding a sledge in his basement, but the hell with him. He won’t let me use his pool and he doesn’t read my blogs.)

The couch is gone now and my family is safe. The futon that I bought as a replacement is much smaller, but on the bright side, it has shown no desire to consume small children.

Not yet, anyway.

***

So I’m at a Tim Horton’s in Pickering the other day when an OPP officer approaches and proclaims “I know you.”

Never a good sign.

I think for a moment and venture that maybe I’d seen him scarfing down some poutine at Mr. Burger in Oshawa. “Maybe,” he offers, “but that’s not it. Where are you from?”

Toronto, I tell him. Downsview, to be exact. “But I don’t think I was famous with cops in my youth.”

Not to be deterred, he figures I might have run with the “wrong crowd” back then and playfully slaps me on the back.

And then it hit me. “I remember now,” I tell him, recalling a disagreement with a sign I had on Consumers Drive in Whitby recently, an incident that resulted in two flat tires and drew three cops, a fire crew, an EMS team and a pair of tow truck drivers, all clamouring for my attention.

“You were the first to arrive,” I tell him, not mentioning that it was his over zealous call that brought all those emergency people to the scene.

He left, satisfied, and after I thought about it a moment, so did I. “Yo,” I tell my co-worker, “the cops know me, bro!”

You can’t buy that kind of street cred.

Lord Stanley returns to Chi-Town

It’s hard to hate on the Boston Bruins.

Yah, I know they orchestrated that miraculous comeback from 4-1 down with half a period to go in Game 7 of the first round series against the Leafs. I know they have that rat-faced bastard Marchand. But I feel for them. I understand their pain.

And though they experienced an epic collapse of their own – up a goal on the Chicago Blackhawks with a minute and change to go, only to lose the game, and the Stanley Cup – I feel no satisfaction.

Not with Patrice Bergeron – he who scored the overtime winner in that fateful series clincher against Toronto – playing with a possible punctured lung, as well a broken rib, torn cartilage and a separated shoulder. Not with Zdeno Chara, Nathan Horton and Jaromir Jagr playing with a host of injuries that rendered them far less than 100 per cent by the time Game 6 rolled around.

Chara may be five foot 21, but he was a target the entire post season. It’s no wonder he was beaten up by the end.

Still, it was a series to remember. In fact, it was a season to remember.

It started out with two sides locked in a battle that no one wanted and no one could win and ended in a battle that was heroic in proportion with a whole bunch of winners.

Okay, not counting hockey fans that were treated to an awesome Stanley Cup Final, there was just one winner: the Blackhawks.

It was a helluva finish to an extraordinary season that only got underway in January after the league and the player’s association finally signed off on a new collective bargaining agreement. It was a year that saw teams play 48 games in a compressed 99-day schedule; a year in which the aforementioned Hawks reeled off a 24-game unbeaten streak; and a year in which Leafs made the playoffs for the first time since before the last work stoppage nine years before.

And the Stanley Cup Final, featuring a dream match-up between Original Six clubs Chicago and Boston, would offer everything we hoped for: speed, skill, stellar goaltending and some nasty physical play.

But in Game 6, with the Cup in the house, the Bruins got to feel a little of the pain the Leafs felt in the first round. Make that a lot of the pain. Up 2-1 and seemingly ready to catch a plane for Chicago for Game 7, Boston coughed up the tying goal with the goalie pulled and then, thoroughly rattled, unbelievably gave up the winner 17 seconds later.

Lights out Boston.

It was a hard way to lose for Boston, but a fantastic series for the fans and in the end, the better team won.

Next year we get a full season of this. See ya then.

Father’s Day

"A man can be a father, but not every man can be a dad."

My step-daughter Adrianne used those words to start a blog she wrote about me a few months ago. It was beautiful – made me tear up and everything – and it also made me think about my Dad.

My Dad was 24 when he became a father for the first time. I was ten years older, but I inherited three at once, so at the age of 34 we were even.

The difference – and it was a big one – was that he had ten years to try to get it right. I was jumping into the deep end without a paddle, or a manual for that matter.

It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that. I had my Angry Dad moments. I had my frustrating times, my feelings of powerlessness.

I wasn’t always around either, especially after Jacob was born. I held down three or four jobs at once in his first year and I think Adrianne, who was 18 at the time, spent more time with her little brother than I did.

I love that they developed a special bond that still exists today, but I hated that I couldn’t be there for him. Especially as my Dad traveled all the time on business during my childhood.

I wished he was around more in those days, I really did. But he was there to teach me how to ride a bike, he was there to teach me about the wonderful and wild wide world outside our cottage door, and he was there to look the principal in the eyes and tell him his son doesn’t lie. “If he said it wasn’t his beer on school property, it wasn’t his beer.” Thanks Dad.

As time went on being a Dad got easier for both of us. No less challenging – I think we can both say the older our kids got the more demanding the job became – but easier, because by then we figured we knew what we were doing.

A little delusional on our parts, sure. But the important thing is we persevered. We learned. And we loved.

We still do.

Among the nice things Adrianne said about me in her blog was that I am “always there” for her and her kids. I guess I am, but that’s only because I had the greatest teacher: my Dad.

I’ve never asked him, but I bet Dad hated being away from us when we were kids as much as we did.  He must have hated it, because he has done his best to make up for lost time since then.

To this day my Dad is the one I call when I need help. It’s always been that way. During my first marriage, when my wife and I were having problems, Dad was the one who acted as the referee and smoothed things over.

In the years that followed, Dad was the person I turned to. Especially if I needed money, and that was often. I’ve owned two houses in my life, and neither deal would have happened without the kick-start we received from my parents.

Yesterday I gathered up the clan – ten of us – and we headed out to Toronto to see Mom and Dad. Also known as Grandma and Grandpa. And Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa. We ate chicken wings and salad and other goodies. And we had a good time because we were together.

I was sitting with my Dad on the porch after dinner watching the kids run around the lawn, playing some sort of soccer-football-dodge ball game. And I noted that it had probably been a long time since there were so many people having fun there.

Dad just smiled.

I love you Dad. Happy Father’s Day.

Cup Final could be one for the ages

This year’s Stanley Cup Final has all the elements to be a truly spectacular series. I can’t wait.

It’s the first Original Six final since 1979 and the first time these two teams have met in any playoff matchup since the Bruins swept the Blackhawks in a ’78 quarter-final. Oddly, despite nearly 90 years in the league together, this is the first time these two clubs have met in a Final.

Because of the lockout Chicago and Boston did not meet this season – they haven’t played each other since October ’11 – so this is tough to handicap. Chicago should win – they were the best team in the NHL this year and Boston fell to fourth in the East – but the Bruins have been dominant since surviving a seven game Toronto Maple Leaf scare in the first round.

(Toronto fans, by the way, should be cheering for the Bruins, because Boston serves as the standard the Toronto organization is modeled after, a process begun with Brian Burke and continued – accelerated, even – by Dave Nonis.)

Boston can’t match the star quality the Hawks have up front in Jonathan Toews, Marion Hossa and Patrick Kane – at least on paper – but Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci have been lights out this post season. Krejci leads all scorers with 21 points and Bergeron has continued his habit of scoring clutch goals, breaking Toronto hearts with the Game 7 OT winner in the first round and scoring the double OT winner against Pittsburgh in Game 3 of the Conference Finals.

Kane’s three goals in the clinching game against the Pens may have tipped the scales back in Chicago’s favour – if he stays hot, of course – while Milan Lucic is the X Factor for Boston. If the Blackhawks want to win, they may not want to wake that bear up.

On defence the two teams match up well but there’s only one Zdeno Chara, and neutralizing the Bruin’s giant is a tough task for any team. (The Leafs had the best success in that category, but I’m not going down that ‘What If’ road.)

Both teams play tough and both teams can play dirty as well - special teams play may end up deciding this series - and Chicago has a number of players who have no qualms about employing the stick-in-the-face method (right Duncan Keith?) if that is what is required. But there is only one rat-faced bastard named Brad Marchand, and he will do his pesty best to get under the skin of stars like Toews and Kane.

In goal Corey Crawford has been very good for Chicago but Tuukka Rask has been out of this world. He stopped 134 of 136 shots in the sweep of Pittsburgh – that’s an incredible .985 save per centage – and his post season average this year is 1.75, with a .948 save per centage.

The more I break this down the more it looks like Boston has the edge.

So I’m picking Chicago in six.

Drop the puck already. This is going to be epic.

D-Day and other thoughts

I remembered Camp Day at Tim Horton’s yesterday. I forgot today was the 69^th anniversary of the D-Day landings until I read a friend’s Facebook post. For shame.

Thirty-thousand Canadian soldiers landed at Juno Beach that day – part of a 160,000 strong Allied landing force that came ashore at five beaches on the Normandy coast in what was the largest amphibious invasion in history, not to mention the turning point of the Second World War.

The Canadians faced eleven gun batteries, as well as machine-gun nests, barbed wire, mines and a scary-high seawall. The first wave suffered 50 per cent casualties, but despite the obstacles the Canadians were off the beach within hours and beginning their advance inland. By the end of the day the Canadians had pushed further into France than any other Allied force.

The invasion was almost scrubbed because of weather. A full moon and relatively calm seas were required and it was only after the chief meteorologist – a Scotsman named James Stagg – told Eisenhower and Montgomery that there would be a “brief improvement” in the conditions was the word given to proceed.

And the Weather Network staff thinks they have pressure.

Thanks to the iffy weather and a brilliant deception plan implemented in the months before the landings, the Germans were caught unaware. Many senior officers were away for the weekend and even Field Marshal Erwin Rommel left his post to celebrate his wife's birthday.

The invasion has been commemorated in several movies, including The Longest Day (1962) and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan (with realistically brutal beach landing scenes), but so far the Canadian D-Day story at Juno Beach has never been told.

But we know.

*

Short day today and as I’m climbing the 401 East on-ramp at Salem Road in Ajax this morning I see in my mirror something small and black fly off the roof of my car and hit the road behind me, shattering into three pieces.

Shit.

I had left my phone up there. It somehow stayed on the wet roof for the mile or so I travelled on Salem before I made the left turn to jump on the highway and off it flew.

Shit.

I carefully backed up on the shoulder (honest – I knew what I was doing) to inspect the damage. The backing was nowhere to be found but the phone and battery were reachable and not smashed in a million pieces, so I reached and hoped for the best.

It still works. Hot damn!

I’ve been meaning to upgrade my phone for months and kept putting it off, so I took this as a sign and my first call was to my boy Ed at Public Mobile to hook me up with something new and shiny tomorrow.

Then I stopped at Hotspot Auto Parts in Oshawa to get front brake pads for my pimped out ride – sorry, my ’95 Escort – and got a cheap set for $17 bucks.

Tomorrow I think I’ll find some money. I’m on a roll.

*

A roll is what the Pittsburgh Penguins are not on, after losing 2-1 in double overtime last night to Boston.

Sid and the Pens didn’t show up for the first two games of the series at home – they were horrible in Game 2, in particular – but they were much better last night.

But to put out that kind of effort and then get your heart ripped out in double OT … I don’t think Pittsburgh is strong enough to overcome that. They’re done.

And that means Cam is going to run away with the family playoff pool. But as no one has put in a dime yet he may have troubles squeezing any money out of us.

Sorry, Cam.