Left to my own devices

SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME A vengers: Endgame , the latest blockbuster entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debuted last  week to  positive reviews and a stellar box office take. It will likely have another great weekend, and many people I know have seen it more than once. More than just a movie, Endgame is a fairly well-done wrap-up to the first eleven years of the MCU. Personally, I think it's a great bit of fan service, but a somewhat uneven, muddled film (you can hear my expanded thoughts, and those of others, here ). Perhaps my favorite aspect of Avengers: Endgame was how it treats male heterosexuality. Before we get into that, however, it's worth mentioning that the movie -- the 22nd overall in the MCU -- featured its first openly gay character , portrayed by co-director Joe Russo. It was a touching moment, though brief. My reaction to it is in stark contrast to what I normally think of such moments. For the most part, I understand t...

T he latest installment of the MARVEL superhero movie universe opened last week, and I saw it on opening night. Avengers: Age of Ultron hit all the perfunctory notes that a modern comics-to-screen film should, though I left the theater without feeling thrilled. That's ok. I'm not really the target audience for the genre anymore. As a teenager, I collected comic books for a few years, almost exclusively Marvel.   Among my favorite were: The Avengers, Captain America, Spider-Man and Thor . After awhile, I stopped collecting, mostly because it became obvious the story lines would never end. It's one reason why I'm not a fan of soap operas. In spite of having abandoned serious comic collecting in the early '90s, I still enjoy a good superhero film. There have been many and, at last count, I'd seen 29 movies of the genre (though how to categorize them is up for debate. I do not, for example, consider V for Vendetta to be a superhero movie. Great film? ...