Comic Book Shop Update: A Place In Space (Central London)

I’m not timely on this blog, but I try to be complete. So think of this blog post as a tweak to a previous post, but with little in the way of actual information.

In my compiling of the comic book shops of London, the third in my list was Comicana in central London. I didn’t have much to say about the shop because it was small and I hadn’t visited it very often. Recently (I don’t know exactly when), the shop changed hands because it has a new name but little else different.

As you can see from the photograph, the shop is now called A Place In Space. What I can’t find out is if this shop is connected to A Place In Space in Croydon (which I talked about in a post about comic book shops in Croydon) – there is nothing about it on the Croydon shop’s Facebook page, and my Google fu is weak in discovering any information.

The shop is essentially the same as the previous shop, except that it’s brighter inside now and there are fewer posters and toys in the windows. Apart from that, the only difference is the banner on the front of the shop over the previous boarding (if you look closer, you can see URL for the old shop below the banner – NB: the URL doesn’t work now). At the time of taking the photo, there was a man who was sizing up the front of the shop for the owner, obviously to repair the wood at the bottom, so I guess there will be a new sign up soon.

My apologies for the lack of actual knowledge in this post. I just wanted to keep my files up to date, so to speak.

Television: Half-Year Report Card Part 3

The final part of my summary of the things I’ve been watching on television in the first half of 2011. This selection is under the heading of comedy, which covers a broad spectrum.

COMEDY
Twenty Twelve
I wasn't sure that a documentary-style comedy about The Olympic Deliverance team coping with the pressure of organising the London 2012 Olympics would be funny, even though it has Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes, Olivia Colman and that squirrelly chap from Green Wing (Karl Theobald). But it is. In a 'this is probably how it is in real life' kind of way. Written and directed by John Morton (who did People Like Us), the realism means that you can feel their pain as they meet one problem after another. In fact, the show was so prescient, it accurately predicted that the real London Olympics would have with the countdown clock; it was rather spooky. Hugh Bonneville is great as Head of Deliverance, Olivia Colman is very quirky as his PA (I love their truncated conversations when relaying messages from his wife), and Jessica Hynes is hilarious as Head of Brand (having worked in an agency, it is uncanny the true shallowness and vacuousness she portrays).

Friday Night Dinner
I was surprised to hear that the ratings and critics were against Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner. Although there is a vague similarity to BBC2's Grandma's House – both set in a Jewish family home over the course of an evening – but that was all about Simon Amstell trying to break out of his presenter mode with some navel-gazing. Friday Night Dinner is a different beast altogether. Friday Night Dinner is written by Robert Popper, more famous for Look Around You with Peter Serafinowicz, although he started out as a commissioning editor for entertainment and comedy at Channel 4 (he commissioned Spaced, so he will always have my gratitude). The premise is that the two sons (Simon Bird from The Inbetweeners and Tom Rosenthal, son of ITV sport presenter Jim) come back to the family home on Friday evening for dinner with mum (Tamsin Grieg, who is far too young to have grown-up sons) and delightfully odd dad (Paul Ritter). With the addition of Mark Heap as the creepy next-door neighbour who has a disturbing crush on the mum, this is a very funny sitcom about families and the way they interact with each other. There are funny lines, over-the-top comedy moments and lovely performances. It's not ground-breaking or the greatest thing ever, but it's really good and enjoyable - why would the critics not like that?

How Television Ruined Your Life
This show is the perfect distillation of Charlie Brooker's progression from his columns for The Guardian through Screenwipe/Newswipe on BBC4 and his work on Channel 4 with You Have Been Watching and 10 O'Clock Live. It brings together his love/hate relationship with television and his bleak world view based on watching lots of television in the first place. It is both incredibly funny and incredibly depressing the points he makes about the affect of television and the nature of modern programme making. The episodes about love and 'aspiration' were so perfect and true and harrowing, you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It perfectly matches his onscreen persona and his dislike for practically everything, but in a scabrous and amusing way. This was six episodes of visual manifestation of one man's mind, with additional sketches with the likes of Kevin Eldon. Excellent stuff

Sirens
A very good comedy drama on Channel 4, based on the book (Blood, Sweat & Tea) of the blog (Random Acts of Reality) by Brian Kellett, a nurse and former emergency medical technician (his beat was London, but the series is set in Leeds). It follows the exploits of a three-member ambulance team and the female police sergeant university friend of the main character (who occasionally narrates thoughts). It's funny, intelligent, warm, and real, with a look at days in the life of people who respond to the normal 'emergencies' of life. I liked the camaraderie between the members of the ambulance crew (one is smart but overthinks everything; one is gay and avoids thinking; the trainee is a typical young lad but who learns a few things) and the fact that it wasn’t afraid to throw in science in a casual manner. It also balanced the humour and the serious stuff, which is always a difficult act in comedy dramas. I hope this gets another season.

I was going to talk about Lead Balloon, the ‘sitcom’ co-written by and starring Jack Dee that is supposedly a very close relative to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (I wouldn’t know; I’ve never seen it), but it wasn’t as funny as the previous seasons and dwelled more on the character anguish. The fifth episode with Robbie Coltrane was interesting and different, but I was watching it without any sense of wanting to – when the PVR abruptly cut off at the end of the final episode, I think it was trying to tell me something.

Television: Half-Year Report Card Part 2

The second part of my quick look at some of the television programmes in the first half of this year. Today I discuss those shows I’m going to label as ‘genre’, which includes sci-fi and detective television.

GENRE
Doctor Who
I talked about the effects of budgetary problems on British television, which brings me to Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a great programme, which has started exploding over in America, and makes a lot of money for BBC, but it has had problems with the money needed to make the show. I don’t know if this was the reason for only getting half of the season before a long summer break, but it can’t help. Of the seven episodes shown, there were the great ones (the ones written by Steve Moffat – episodes 1, 2 and 7 – and the beautiful episode about the Tardis written by Neil Gaiman) and the not so good ones (the silly pirate one and the two-parter about the synthetic flesh ‘gangers’). The continuing story of the death of the Doctor at the hands of the Impossible Astronaut is another piece of Moffat fun, and the reveal of the identity of River Song (one of the great characters in sci-fi) was a delight. It’s an agonising wait for the second half, but the title of the next episode alone has kept me smiling: ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’.

Being Human (Series Three)
I've enjoyed the BBC3 fantasy drama Being Human but the third series has been a real drag. It was getting to the point where I didn't anticipate watching 60 minutes of whining. Mitchell was annoying, the love story between him and Annie seemed unbelievable and silly, and the resurrection of the irritating Herrick (he looked like the branch manager of a small rural bank) depressed me because it meant he was back and even more irritating. And I was angered by creator Toby Whithouse’s cowardice in having Herrick NOT killing Nina – a vampire with centuries of murder who stabs someone in the kidney – just so Nina can be back for the next episode. However, the pain was relieved by the greatness of the season finale, and not just because they killed off Herrick and Mitchell. Intensity, drama, action, meaning; it was almost worth watching the rest of the series just to get to it. And, with the introduction of the marvellous Lee Ingleby as an ancient vampire called Wyndham, there is finally a mean and scary vampire (one of the Old Ones) that you can believe in. Ingleby, who has done many things but will always be associated to me with his roles as Young Thug in the famous episode of Spaced and Stan Shunpike in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was brilliant in the few minutes he was on screen and I hope he will make a great villain for the next series.

Zen
BBC1 went the Wallander route with this: taking a series of crime novels that are set in a foreign country but use English actors filmed on location. Wallander had Kenneth Branagh as the lead in adaptation of the Henning Mankell book set in Sweden; Zen has Rufus Sewell as Aurelio Zen (I love the name) in the Michael Dibdin novels set in Italy (specifically Rome). The show looked good, the opening credits had a lovely vibe of the 1960s, the setting was beautiful and it was intriguing to follow the adventures of an honest policeman in a culture of corruption. There were three 90-minute episodes that followed Zen as he tries to balance his job, being used by government officials, a divorce, living with his mother and starting a relationship with a woman in the office. Sewell worked well as the main character, and there was good support from the rest of the cast. The ratings and critics had been good, but it appeared that the BBC had decided not to make any more episodes; however, the international sales of the series were so good that it looks like we might be getting more episodes.

Case Histories
This was a six-part series of one-hour dramas adapting three of the novels by Kate Atkinson about Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector (and originally a soldier) who is now a private investigator. The main draw is Jason Isaacs (Hello to Jason Isaacs, if you’re a listener to the Mark Kermode show on Radio 5) in the lead: he brings a depth and empathy to the role, which is expected from an actor of his quality, and you really feel for his character. The other aspect that is intriguing here is the character himself: the female perspective of Brodie, who is a tough guy but who also has real drama in his past that still haunts and drives him, and you can see this depth of caring he has for people as a driving force in what he does. The stories themselves are interesting and clever, but it’s Brodie and Isaacs that keep you coming back. I really hope they make another series.

Justified
This is broadcast on 5USA, an offshoot of Channel 5, which might go some way to explaining why this excellent series isn’t well known in this country or showered with the critical praise it deserves. It’s a show that quietly and without fuss creates excellent drama. The different plot lines that bubbled along throughout the season were handled well, and they were all based on great characterisation. Timothy Olyphant is fantastic as US Marshal Raylan Givens, the lead in the midst of a great cast: Walton Goggins as old but criminal friend Boyd Crowder being one of the highlights, but perhaps outshone by Margo Martindale as Mags Bennet, the ruthless but smiling matriarch of the Bennet clan. Comprising shocking turn of events, gun play, social commentary and big business, Justified was quietly brilliant and shows no sign of stopping.

Walking Dead
This was broadcast on terrestrial TV (Channel Five) earlier this year, which is why I include it. I haven’t read the comics, not because it’s black and white or an Image comic, but simply because I’m not a fan of zombies – the recent zombie craze has completed eluded me. Therefore, I was in two minds about watching this, but I’m glad that I did. The good thing is the way that the story is treated completely seriously and the tone and approach is maintained throughout the six episodes that make up the first season, and it’s thrilling and well done. However, this is still a zombie story, so all the characterisation is leading up to the deaths that will happen. Also, I really didn’t like the bit in the third episode where, having escaped from downtown Atlanta and a horde of zombies, Rick Grimes (played well by English actor Andrew Lincoln) turns around and goes back; it was clunky and annoying and it took me out of the story. Good stuff, but not necessarily my cup of tea.

Castle
This has just started showing on terrestrial television (Channel 5 on a Friday evening) and it’s nothing more than Murder She Wrote with ride-alongs and sexual tension, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun, which is mostly down to Nathan Fillion. He’s a charming mofo, and that is the entire appeal of the show. His attitude, charisma and delivery are fantastic, and I spend most of the time laughing at his dialogue. It’s not groundbreaking or great television, but it’s thoroughly entertaining and, sometimes, that’s all I need.

Television: Half-Year Report Card Part 1

As I did for my cinema habits of the first half of 2011, I’m jotting down a few notes on the various television programmes of interest that have passed my eyes. I’ve been watching a lot of dramas on the BBC (after they got a money infusion just before the stupid coalition government took it all away), but there’s a variety of other genres as well, just not in this post – see the next posts for others.

DRAMA
United
This starred David Tennant, in a one-off drama about the events leading up to the Munich air disaster in 1958 where 20 of the 44 people died aboard the plane carrying the Manchester United football team (nicknamed The Busby Babes). Tennant is coach Jimmy Murphy (he wasn’t on the plane because he was managing the Welsh international team on the same day – side note: he was the manager of Wales in the only time they qualified for the World Cup), who keeps the club going, even though they only had four surviving players able to play, including Bobby Charlton (the drama had focussed on his early days at Man Utd), because manager Matt Busby (Dougray Scott) was badly injured. This was the sort of excellent drama that the BBC does, and it was moving (obviously, based on the central event) and a fascinating glimpse of a different world.

Christopher And His Kind
Doctor Who connection again: this see Matt Smith showing that there’s more to him than his excellent portrayal as the Doctor. He plays Christopher Isherwood, the author (this is an adaptation of Isherwood’s autobiography; Isherwood also wrote the novella Sally Bowles, which was the source of inspiration for Cabaret; he also wrote A Single Man, which was turned into an excellent film with Colin Firth by Tom Ford), and his time spent in Berlin in the early 1930s. He has a tumultuous affair with a young German man which ends abruptly, only to see him as a Nazi later on; he also teaches English to a wealthy Jewish department store owner, which leads to him seeing firsthand the effect of Nazis on Jews; he meets another young man and they eventually leave Germany but Isherwood can’t get his lover a passport, so they travel around Europe for a while. It is a powerful drama with excellent performances but particularly Matt Smith, who is fantastic in a role that is completely different from his famous alter ego.

Exile
The first Alzheimer thriller, starring John Simm and Jim Broadbent, with a great supporting turn from Olivia Colman. Simm is a disgraced journalist who has to leave London and return home up north, where his sister (Colman) looks after their father (Broadbent), a well-known newspaper man who now suffers from Alzheimers. Simm hasn't been home for a while because of the time his father beat him when he discovered something in his father's study, but this memory is what sets off events as Simm finds out more about the circumstances behind it and the conspiracy that his father seems involved in (the council leader was the man he was investigating, who had been a doctor with possibly dodgy credentials at a psychiatric hospital where there were rumours of one of the orderlies forcing inmates into sex with him and others). The programme was three one-hour episodes shown over three nights, and the best part was the chance to see Simm and Broadbent acting against each other (Colman was good too), but the conspiracy element wasn't enough for the intensity the programme was trying to display, thus leaving the ending weakened.

The Shadow Line
This was a very intriguing series that really split viewers down the middle: either they thought it was interesting and different, or they thought it was annoying and slow. It was a unique programme: written and directed by Hugo Blick, known for his comedy work, and it had a very unique rhythm to the storytelling and the dialogue, with lots of pauses and camera shots lingering on props. The story was about the cops and criminals investigating the murder of a drugs boss, but it was also about the people doing the investigating, particular the DI running the police investigation (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the ‘consultant’ of the drugs gang (Christopher Eccleston). It had a great cast – the two leads were strong, and Rafe Spall was a scene-stealer as the nephew of the murdered drugs boss – and a unique sensibility that made it feel more like a novel on television. The series was good but it had one incident that took me out of the story – when Stephen Rea’s mysterious character survived being shot with hardly any after effects, my heart was no longer engaged in the otherwise excellent drama.

The Crimson Petal And The White
This got good reviews, but that hadn't persuaded my girlfriend and I to watch it. When it was recommended by my girlfriend's parents and her cousin, we thought we should check it out on iPlayer. An adaptation of a novel in four hour-long episodes, it was an interesting approach to a period drama (it was set in the late 1800s), with unusual mood music and shifting camera work and focus instead of the more stately style that is employed in these sorts of things. It was sufficiently interesting to keep watching, but we never really connected with it. It was good to see Chris O'Dowd acting well in a straight piece, and there were nice supporting turns from the likes of Gillian Anderson, Sheila Henderson, Mark Gatiss and Richard E Grant, but we didn't really care about what was going on to get absorbed into the drama.

From A Library: Grandville

Script, art and book design by Bryan Talbot

Even though I am European, I haven’t read a lot of what I consider European comics (specifically bande dessinée and Italian comics) – even though there is only a small stretch of water separating us, it’s not that easy to get your hands on them (except for Asterix and Tintin), and they’ve always seemed to be completely different to the sensibility of British comics (such as Eagle, 2000 AD or The Beano). Grandville seems to be a British version of those exotic European books, produced in their hundreds every year (on a trip to Brussels, I spent a happy hour just being in a shop that was covered from floor to ceiling with thousands of these graphic albums), and I mean that in a good way.

Grandville is a ‘scientific-romance thriller’ – containing elements of steam punk, alternate history and adventure. It just happens to occur in a world of anthropomorphised animals (which is not a problem for someone like me who is a huge fan of the excellent Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai). The hero of the tale is Detective Inspector LeBrock (French for ‘The Badger’) of Scotland Yard, a powerfully built and capable badger with the deductive ability of Sherlock Holmes. The setting is a world where the British lost the Napoleonic wars and France conquered Europe; for the past 200 years, Britain was a ‘small and unimportant country connected to the French empire by the Channel railway bridge’ that has recently gained its independence, becoming the Socialist Republic of Britain. The French empire is ruled from Grandville (Paris) by Emperor Napoleon XII, where there is a lot of Anglophobia after a terrorist attack occurred which had a similar scale to September 11.

LeBrock has been called in to investigate the death of a British diplomat, who was found in his home having seemingly committed suicide. Things are not what they appear, naturally, and soon LeBrock is on his way to Grandville accompanied by his sidekick, Detective Ratzi, and where LeBrock immediately finds himself in trouble as his investigations start to uncover a political conspiracy. And the trouble is violence – for a book full of animals that harks back to children’s stories (Rupert the Bear is an inspiration, according to Talbot, and makes a cameo in the town called ‘Nutwood’ where LeBrock’s investigation begins), the violence is bloody and vicious. It is no surprise that, along with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Quentin Tarantino is one of Talbot’s influences – there is even a torture scene where an ear is cut off. This blood-spilling action and fruity language make for a compelling blend that contrasts with the furry setting – seeing LeBrock firing a massive machine gun with one hand and slaughtering lots of Frenchies is great stuff.

There is lots of referencing in the book, which adds to the appeal. In addition to Rupert, there is a character called Snowy Milou (Tintin’s dog was called Snowy in the English translation, Milou in the French), who refers to the Congo and the Blue Lotus; the only humans who exist (‘a hairless breed of chimpanzee that evolved in the town of Angoulême’) look like they’ve been drawn in the style of Hergé; there’s a poster for Omaha the cat dancer at the Folies Bergère; there is even the priceless film reference pun, ‘Badgers? We don’t need no steenkin’ badgers!’, which is an indication of the humour Talbot employs throughout.

This is a beautiful book – Talbot’s clear line is exquisite and his sense of design and storytelling is impeccable. All the different animals look great and the action sequences are fantastic. The story is a thrilling mix of different genres – it’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s smart, it’s romantic – and I love the alternate history that Talbot has created for himself. If I have one tiny complaint, it was the unnecessary death of the love interest, seemingly there just to provide LeBrock’s fury for the final violent section. It was the only bum note in an otherwise rip-roaring adventure yarn, and I look forward to the remaining books in the series (a second book is already out, Grandville Mon Amour, and there are three more planned).

Comic Book Shop (Sort Of): Book & Comic Exchange

I define a comic book shop primarily as a location where you can buy the new comic books that were published that week. Even though I don’t classify Book & Comic Exchange on Pembridge Road in Notting Hill as a proper comic book shop, I thought it warranted an entry on my list of places you can buy comic books and trade paperbacks in London. It has been around for a while (I traded comic books there in the late 1990s, early 2000s) and it even recently started a sister site on Berwick Street in Soho (where I picked up my Blue Beetle trades for a steal), although the Soho site no longer sells comic books, despite what it might say on the website.

The Notting Hill shop is just around the corner from Notting Hill Gate tube station, which could explain part of its long-lasting appeal – easy to get to and it sees a lot of people walking past (trying to get a photo of the shop without people walking past it or into it was almost impossible). However, the shop itself is not the reason to visit: it’s a mess. It’s a dark and dingy shop, with shelves from floor to ceiling full of books; in fact, the shelves aren’t enough and there are books on floor in various piles.

The overwhelming majority of the shop is dedicated to second-hand books; the comics and trade paperbacks are a small concern, contained in a central aisle in the middle of the shop. It’s not a huge selection – I remember that they used to have more comics back when I was a regular visitor, and I don’t think that’s just my rose-tinted nostalgia – but there is some filtering: there are some issues bagged together because they form a complete story; there are some relatively newer comics, sectioned out into Marvel/DC heroes or teams, which are different from the older (approximately 10 years) comics in another section; the trades are split into Marvel and DC and Indie; there is even a small filtering of authors (Ellis, Ennis, Moore, Morrison – it is a UK shop, after all).

The main appeal of the shop is that the comics are priced to sell – usually about £1 for recent things, 50p for slightly older or less sellable books – although the second-hand trades are about the same price as trade you can buy new on Amazon; however, you do get the opportunity to flick through the books before you buy and see what they actually look like (I flicked through some Jason Aaron Ghost Rider collections because I’ve never seen more than some preview material on comic book news websites), and you always have the opportunity to sell or trade them back afterwards.

If you want to get down and dirty with books and comics, you can always visit the basement – everything down there is 50p and there is no filtering of the books, and the comics are a messy collection on top of a table and on the floor. This is the chaotic part of the shop but the upstairs is only slightly less messy and chaotic. The shop is cramped, messy, dusty and unwelcoming – I’m amazed that it is able to keep operating. But exist it does, and thus demands cataloguing for the purposes of my comic book shops list.

Notes On A Film – Captain America: The First Avenger

It may not be news to you, but I didn’t know that Joe Johnston was won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for his work as part of the team on Raiders of the Lost Ark. This fact certainly explains a lot about the feel of this origin story for Captain America: a serial adventure with a period setting but a modern sensibility. It doesn’t achieve the heights of Raiders, but it’s a lot of fun with the right tone needed for the translation of Marvel’s sensibility towards World War II from comic book to screen.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m British or because I have trouble accepting the character of Captain America, but he’s never really worked for me (with the exception of Ed Brubaker’s run, but I’ve always felt that the book deals with Steve Rogers, not Captain America per se). Part of it is the time-specific nature of the concept – the ones set during the war seem to make the most sense. This could be one of the reasons why this film works: it’s Captain America in a time where he fits. The classic origin tale is told: Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a puny individual who is unfit to join the army, which doesn’t stop him from trying five different times (illegally using different towns in each application), until he’s noticed by German scientist Dr Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who thinks he would be the perfect candidate for his experiment – creating a super soldier using his scientific serum and vita rays (as supplied by Howard Stark, Marvel doing what it does best by creating a coherent universe with characters popping up in different films but maintaining consistency). The experiment is a success, and Rogers is turned into the hyper-muscled version we know; however, the film takes a nice twist with the origin story and turns him into a PR tool for selling war bonds, which allows for the slightly original costume to be introduced and the badge-shaped shield. They even have the comic book with Captain America punching Hitler on the cover as propaganda for the kids, which was a nice touch.

This section of the film flows well: Evans is really good as both the weakling (the CGI to make him look like so puny is really impressive, with only a few sections where it looks a bit ropey) and the pumped-up hero; he was good fun as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four films, but he plays this character completely differently and does a very good job of selling the person of Steve Rogers. There is good support from Tommy Lee Jones as the Colonel in charge of the operation, Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter and Tucci as Erskine. This section also nicely sets up the idea that Rogers is the right guy to become Captain America because he’s a genuinely heroic and decent person: he never gives up, he does the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and he’s self-sacrificing (throwing himself on a dummy grenade to protect others in the pre-serum sequence). It is summed up perfectly in the response to the question from Erskine, ‘Do you want to kill Nazis?’ – Steve replies, ‘I don’t want to kill anyone. I just don’t like bullies.’ It should also be pointed out that the film is rather funny – there are some good lines that reminded me of the humour in Raiders – and this adds to the enjoyment of the film.

The other section of the film is the bad guy: the Red Skull. A fanatical German, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is head of Hydra, the research and technology department of the Nazi war effort, who underwent an imperfect version of Erskine’s super soldier formula, making him strong but also giving him his red skull. He obtains the Tesseract (last seen in the film Thor) to power his weapons, with which he is going to take on the world – he has Dr Arnim Zola (Toby Young) creating advanced tech for him, so there is the comic book mix of futuristic design in the middle of the 1940s. If you’ve read any of the comic books, you can handle this fantastical version of World War II as portrayed in Marvel comics – the stories are set in the horror of the actual war but don’t dishonour the events by basing these superhero adventures in the exact same details, hence fighting Hydra, who are more Nazi than the Nazis. Again, the tone of the film gets this balance right so that you can go with it instead of wondering about the incongruity of laser guns and laser tanks in World War II. It’s also helped by Weaving’s performance as the Red Skull; I swear that he sounded exactly like Arnold Schwarzenegger at times, which probably helped.

There are a lot of things that Marvel has done right in this film in adapting from the comics. Bucky is no longer the 16-year-old sidekick in a uniform, but a friend of Steve’s from Brooklyn who enlisted and was subsequently saved by Steve and then became a member of Steve’s team (effectively Sgt Fury’s Howling Commandos, from the comics but with some changes: Dum Dum Dugan [the moustached one], Gabriel Jones [the African American], Jim Morita [the Japanese American] and Jacques Dernier [the French resistance one] are there, but the British one is now James Montgomery Falsworth, who was Union Jack in the comic books and wasn’t part of the Commandos). The fate of Bucky is also kept (I guess the cinema universe isn’t ready for the Winter Soldier) but not as part of the final battle with the Red Skull as in the comics. There is also a nice Easter egg for fans in the form of the Golden Age Human Torch, seen encased in a glass cylinder in the World’s Fair where Steve encounters Erskine, with the name of Prof. Phineas Horton above. The development of the linking thread of the Tesseract from Thor through this film (I presume it’s going to be the MacGuffin for the Avengers film) and the setting up of Hydra as a serious and continuous threat in the Marvel universe are handled well. The only thing that didn’t quite work for me was the post-script to the film: after Steve has sacrificed himself at the end of the film (if you consider that a spoiler, can I ask what are you doing reading this blog?), we get a footnote showing Steve waking up and discovering he’s in the future (and introduced to Nick Fury) – the scene just sits there as an unnecessary addendum after the moving climax. It felt like the beginning of The Avengers movie instead of the end of the Captain America film; the post-credits sequence didn’t click the way the other Marvel post-credits sequences have – it’s more of an actual teaser trailer, instead of the usual (and subtler) connecting scene.

Overall, I enjoyed Captain America: it’s a good film but it doesn’t have that X-factor that makes it special (such as the first Iron Man). The action sequences suffer occasionally from CGI imperfections, perhaps due to the 3D – I saw it in 2D, naturally, so that might have had an effect – but they are competently handled and enjoyable, which overcame my minor niggles. In some respects, this was the easier proposition of a Captain America adventure in World War II – Joss Whedon will have the tougher job in The Avengers when he has to make the character work in the present day. In the scale of this summer’s superhero blockbusters, it is miles better than Green Lantern, slightly better than X-Men: First Class, and not quite as good as Thor.

Rating: DVD

[Explanation of my updated film rating system]