Stranger Days

I loved Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness! But then I've been a Sam Raimi fan since I was about 10, and the film is more or less Evil Dead 4 with a Marvel budget.

I found the first film interesting -- not least how it rejects the traditional hero origin narrative -- but I'm not sure I liked it. I very much liked the sequel. It rattles along at a great pace and it's full of fun ideas and bold action and wonderful imagery, leaning away from the almost mathsy weird geometry of the first film and more into liquid dreams and nightmares and horror, which is not surprising given the director. Sam Raimi was an excellent choice.

(Although I would love to see what Guillermo Del Toro would do with Strange; I suspect it would be even better.)

The big fan-pleasing moment in the middle is perhaps the least interesting part, which is a surprise. Still good, but overshadowed by the rest of the film.

It's not perfect. There are some generic cgi bad guys in the finale that look like they've wandered in from a PS3 game. There's also no real character development; America Chavez is introduced but never becomes anything more than a plot device, which is a shame. Strange sort of learns a lesson over the course of the story, but it's handwaved and feels disconnected from the rest of the narrative, suggesting it's a remnant of an earlier draft.

I've seen some comments that the film ruins Wanda and negates WandaVision, and while I see where that criticism comes from, I disagree. I think it follows on from WandaVision without contradiction, but I do think the film wastes the character a little. WandaVision suggested an interesting, and probably extended, story arc for Wanda, one I'd have expected to see developed over multiple films and TV programmes, and while it is sort of addressed in the film, it's almost as a throwaway thing, and it does feel like potential squandered.

All that said, there's nothing to say that the suggested arc couldn't be explored in future, and even if we don't get the Wanda I wanted to see, Elizabeth Olsen does a fantastic job with the Wanda we do get. She's more or less a co-protagonist -- and a very interesting one, but I won't say more for spoiler reasons -- to the point that much as I love the title, Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch would perhaps be more apt.

It's not as good as Thor 3 or the Guardians of the Galaxy films, but it's in the top tier of Marvel movies for me. I give it four Crimson Bands of Cyttorak out of five.

Less-Than-Three Harpsichords

Top Ten Comic Costumes

I meant to do this ages ago, when Nige did it, but I forgot, and Rol has since reminded me. So here goes, again in no particular order:

10. Advanced Idea Mechanics

Hydra's goons get proper supervillain costumes. The Hand's ninjas all get pyjamas in which to go and get beaten up by Daredevil. AIM though, they get to wear, well, what they wear to work. I love that it's just their work uniform, no fuss, no frills, like they walked out of the factory and straight into a brawl with Captain America.

9. The Avengers' leather jackets

The 90's were a dark time in comics, when many very silly things happened. Superman grew a mullet, Spider-Man got a suit of armour, and the Avengers got leather jackets. Rumour has it that someone at Marvel saw that the X-Men comics were selling shedloads, and decided that it was because of the matching leather jackets they all wore, and so forced the Avengers writers to include similar outfits. Sales did not increase.

Still, ill-advised as they were, there's something charming about the Avengers team jackets. It's a neat way of creating a united team visual while still keeping the individual costumes. See also the nextwave trenchcoats and Jubilee's hipster X-Men parka, the latter of which is now in the possession of one Mr Scott Pilgrim.

8. Darwyn Cooke's Catwoman costume

Not his actual one, obviously. Not that he has one. Well, he might, I don't know what he gets up to in his spare time. Anyway... the reason I like this one is because it's a very clean design with one foot in the pulp forebears of superhero comics, and the other in a more modern style, but which retains some subtle nods to the whole feline schtick. I'm not really one for making superhero costumes more "sensible", but this is one which works.

7. Daredevil's black costume

No, not that one.

The one he wore before the hideous yellow outfit, as told in Frank Miller's Man Without Fear miniseries. It's basically a black tracksuit, complete with white trainers, but there's something devil-may-care about that, and after all, DD's blind, so what does he care what he looks like?

6. Doctor Strange

Because it's so, er, strange. There's no unifying design, the colours are all over the place, you've got that weird liver spot pattern on the gloves, the nonsensical shirt logo (is it a bird? An angel?), and the plain leggings, as if they ran out of ideas by the time they got to his waist; it's a visual mess, but because it's Steve Ditko, it's a glorious mess which somehow still works. Strange wore a trenchcoat for a while in the 90's too, but it didn't suit him.

5. Hela

Just look at the design. It's all design. It's got design dripping off it, there's so much design going on. And yet, it's actually quite a simple two-tone thing. Kirby busted out these simple geometric costumes now and then, and they're his best designs by far.

4. Iron Man

It doesn't really matter which one, as they're all great in their own way (except the dodgy Rob Liefeld Heroes Reborn one). My favourites are probably the one from the Byrne era on Avengers, and the "silver centurion" one from just after that.

3. The New Green Goblin

The Ditko design is a classic, make no mistake, but I really like Humberto Ramos' early-2000s revamp, which is actually not really much of a revamp at all, it's just drawn differently. The shirt is gone, but the green chainmail is still there, and the mask is the same, it's all just a bit better in some way I can't properly describe.

2. Robin

I suppose technically this is the Tim Drake costume, although the image is from Teen Titans Go! and it's probably Dick Grayson wearing it there. Anyway, it's a good set of colours, a clean design, and an effective contrast with his mentor's costume, something the more recent angsty versions have forgotten.

1. Spider-Man's black costume

The red and blue is a classic, and rightly so, and as Rol points out, it makes perfect sense in the context of the character's masked wrestler origins. All that said, the black costume looks great. It fits the spider theme perfectly, and for a few years in the 1980's, it made for a striking image unlike any other hero in comics. I know it's all part of the grim-and-gritty movement in the superhero genre of the time, and the costume begat a decade of rubbish symbiote stories (and Spider-Man 3), but it's a great visual.

Honourable Mentions:

I would have picked MODOK, but the iconic image there is not really a costume, more a general character design. Ditto Thor, Hellboy, Death's Head and Rocket Raccoon. I almost picked the Frank Quitely X-Men costume, but it's probably aged worse than the Avengers' jackets. Finally, the Hobgoblin would have been picked if Ramos hadn't beefed up his predecessor's look.