Behold mortals, Comic Book Guy returns, robed in smug certainty and armed with opinions so definitive they may as well be carved into a longbox. In the wake of a slate that dared to test the fandom’s endurance, filled with wartime explosions, mutant excess, eyeliner, and funerals - I alone shall render judgment to determine if these films were faithful, hubristic, or gloriously misguided. Excelsior!
ST. ROCK
If Indiana Jones and Inglourious Basterds had a baby you'd get Sgt. Rock - a pulpy, high-caliber Nazi-punching thrill ride with just enough biblical relic nonsense to make even Spielberg raise an eyebrow. Alan Ritchson grunts, bleeds, and growls his way through World War II like Captain America’s cousin who got held back a grade. The rest of Easy Company are a perfectly chaotic ensemble of archetypes, from “chatterbox with a death wish” to “silent Native American sniper” - and yet it all somehow works. The action is brutal, the pacing’s tighter than a bootlace, and the mythology is just bonkers enough to make you believe a spear that stabbed Jesus can nuke Nazis. Special shoutout to Damon Herriman, who chews scenery as Hitler like it’s his last bratwurst. It's not subtle, it’s definitely not deep, but it’s the kind of pulpy throwback we secretly want all historical comic book adaptations to be.
X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE
And so we arrive at Age of Apocalypse, the long-awaited X-Men epic that finally answers the question: “What if the X-Men franchise had the budget of Avengers: Endgame but the tone of Children of Men?” Yes, it’s gorgeously shot. Yes, it’s grand, dark, and full of genuinely apocalyptic stakes. And yes, Cable fans can finally stop yelling into the void - he’s here, he’s grizzled, and he’s packing enough plot devices to fill Krakoa. Miguel Sapochnik brings that Battle of the Bastards energy to mutant mayhem, turning the NORAD finale into a full-blown mutant showdown with psychic flames, kinetic card explosions, and a near-biblical beatdown on Apocalypse himself.
BLADE
Blade returns with fangs sharpened and.... surprisingly long-winded. Damson Idris broods with gravitas, and Spike Lee brings plenty of stylistic flair, but somewhere between the layered monologues and extended debates on vampire geopolitics, someone forgot we came for bloodsuckers getting sliced in half. There are bursts of brilliance, but it is missing some of that old-school, ash-spraying, snarky brutality that has always been crucial to the character. Hopefully the already in-the-works sequel brings more action, less conversation.
THE CROW: YOMI
The Crow: Yomi plays like The Crow filtered through Takashi Miike. Mike Faist makes for a convincingly haunted Crow, while Minami Hamabe is genuinely ethereal, and when the violence finally arrives it’s gnarly enough to remind you this is still a Miike joint. It’s thoughtful, punishing, and often beautiful, but the tone is so relentlessly grave that by the end you’re not just feeling the character’s curse - you’re feeling Miike’s absolute refusal to let this thing have any fun whatsoever. It was bold and brutal, but I don't know if I could spend more time with these characters. Thankfully it's an anthology series.
SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY
Superman: Doomsday plays like the most emotionally responsible adaptation of a story that originally existed to spike comic-shop sales and traumatize kids in the ’90s. Aidan Turner’s Superman radiates Big Blue Boy Scout sincerity, Daniel Craig’s Lex delivers villainy with smug confidence, and Doomsday shows up exactly as advertised: zero personality, infinite spikes, and all the subtlety of a brick thrown through a Metropolis zoning board. The film gets major geek cred for actually committing to the death - funeral, black armbands, existential despair - before rolling out the black-suit. Sure, it’s a little long, occasionally self-serious, and treats punching monsters like a moral dilemma, but by the time Superman flies back sun-charged and brooding, you’re reminded why The Death and Return still works: sometimes the best superpower is making a city believe again… preferably after being stabbed by a bone spike the size of a surfboard.
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