“The Comic Bucket List” is a limited column where we review 25 comic books and graphic novels we’ve been meaning to read for years. We discover if they were worth waiting for, or if they never quite lived up to the hype they promised.
DANGER GIRL (FIRST RUN)
1998
J. Scott Campbell, Andy Hartnell
As a slasher fanatic I really can’t endorse “Hazmat” enough. As a Hispanic male, the almost completely Hispanic cast for “Hazmat” is also another reason why I endorse director Lou Simon’s slasher film. You often see so many slasher films about white kids running back and forth and fighting a slasher, it’s rare that we see a predominantly Hispanic cast facing off against a masked killer.
Disney and Marvel presents “Hulk and the Agents of Merchandising Possibilities”! Demonstrating the same business model as their rivals at the Cartoon Network, Disney and Marvel’s fusion has guaranteed all the former Marvel shows scrapped in favor of more juvenile and louder action shows. ‘”Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” was taken off in favor of the less complex and more action friendly “Avengers Assemble,” and now Marvel has given Hulk his own vehicle.
Director Jordan Wippell’s short mock documentary is a funny bit of role reversal, where Wippell chronicles the life of an avid movie buff. Instead of this movie fan being for all forms of movie going, he happens to be furiously against the idea of subtitles during a movie. He not only hates subtitles, but hates foreign films altogether. Sam Bowtell is hilarious as the movie geek Edward who owns his own movie store DVD Nation.
The aliens didn’t land on Roswell, we landed on the aliens, and now they’re back with a vengeance. After the Roswell crash in 1947, the government built a group of five specially trained enforcers to raid alien bunkers and strong holds and take them down. But after years of inactivity, the team was retired, and they disbanded, becoming US citizens in search of another direction.
Charles Bands’ “Unlucky Charms” is entertaining only in the way that modern Full Moon films are. They’re trashy and don’t even seem to try anymore, but at least there’s always a highlight or two that salvages the experience. Plus, “Unlucky Charms” is not even eighty minutes long. Factor in the opening credits, and closing credits, it’s a little over an hour of a goofy horror comedy with really hot women.
While we may not have a “Shaun of the Dead” sequel, I like to think of “Cockneys vs. Zombies” as the equally funny, and engaging story that occurred during Shaun’s trek to save his girlfriend. This time around, a construction crew accidentally unearths a mysterious tomb filled with corpses and skulls. When the workers are killed by the still re-animated denizens of the tombs, a zombie plague begins to spread across the East Side of London.