The Thanos Imperative

Well I haven't enjoyed a comic this much in a long time. It is a near flawless example of how comics should be. Long story short (very short actually), due to constant galatic warfare the fabric of the universe has been damaged to a point where a tear into an alternate reality has opened. This is a reality where death has literally been destroyed and without death present life "has won". Which comes across as an overflowing universe full of many familiar faces but slight to extreme mutations. I guess with not even cellular death present you will get some weird growths. At the same time in the normal Marvel Universe, Thanos - the avatar of death has returned to life. He was romantically involved with the abstract of death who can appear in either typical skeleton form or female form. Anyway, looks like they broke up and he had to be sent back to the world of the living. He's not happy about it. Then there's these jerls of the universal church of truth who worship the weirdos from the cancerverse (where life has won) and through their sacrifice allow them to march right in and try to take the normal universe. The only thing that can stop them is the freak Thanos and their first goal is to find him so they can eliminate death in this universe also.

This story continues mainly out of what is the complete awesomeness that is The Guardians of the Galaxy. The center heroes are obscure enough that even seasoned comic book fans might never even have heard of them. And this is where things shine. Abnett and Lanning (the authors) have such great characterization that you immediatly like each character and care about what happens. When one character is a tree who can only say "I am Groot" and you actually want to see what happens to this guy and feel bad for him when he gets smashed is saying something. Then there's Rocket Raccoon, who may sound silly, but very quickly became one of my favourite parts. Then there's Star Lord, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Mantis, and others. Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a Guardians review. I'm sad to see that series end.

The Thanos Imperative is perfect for its exciting plot, loads of action and twists, great art, great dialogue and story pacing and anyone with even a passing interest in comics should read it. There's appearances by Silver Surfer and Galactus and who wouldn't like to travel the galaxy on a surf board? Serious. The only bad part is that it's over after 6 issues and Marvel has discontinued their cosmic line of comics.

I give it 5 creepy tentacle monsters out of 5.

Shutter Island

So after several people recommending this movie to me on account of me being a psychology major, I finally watched this movie.
-side note- I watched it from a 99 cent bootleg my mom bought illegally at some variety store where this old chinese guy pushes movies he burns onto his customers. My mom is a loyal customer.
I'm not going to give a plot summary, some people hate that whole spoiler thing and normally I have no problem doing it. Keep that in mind when reading reviews from time to time.
So everything starts with an investigation on an island where a facility for the criminally insane is set. A missing patient. Here's an island of psychopaths and all sorts of delusional creeps. It grows into an exploration of schizophrenia although I feel the need to point out that statisically speaking, schizophrenics are less likely to be violent than other demographics. It seems movies and media really like to use delusional schizophrenics are scary villians. But seeing as that can be good fiction I'll let it slide and not take away any points by perpetuating an incorrect stereotype.
What I like about this movie is the blurred line between reality and delusion that is only resolved in the final moments. It keeps you wondering what exactly is going on and who is true or false. My only complaint is that I expected one final twist in the end and didn't get it. I suppose keeping things within reality may be a better choice anyway. I was diggin the whole conspiracy thing.

I give it 4 Haldols out of 5