[M'onel]

I've seen some commercials.......so someone explain to me again why this series is soooooo good because so far I'm not impressed.

[Riddle Me This]

It's over the top. It breaks the fourth wall. It doesn't take itself seriously. It manages to disguise spoofs as plot points. The characters are, at points, so real they're unlikable.

The movie to me is going to be fantastic. By any chance, have you read the books? I understand this won't be for everyone.

[gland]

It's a slice of life romantic comedy action movie where they have epic videogame boss fights and use subspace to cross the street. What's not to love?

[Dark Knight]

The comic kind of sucks. The movie looks awesome.

[Mistuh LuTor]

Blasphemy! You shall be punished for your heretical beliefs!

Or in normal-speak. I disagree with your proffered opinion of the comics and respectfully state that I enjoy them greatly.

[Dark Knight]

Do they get better after about halfway through the first volume?

[gland]

The first volume kinda tricks you into thinking you're getting a more normal kind of story, until the big fight at the end, which sets the stage for the rest of the series. If you've only read the first half of volume one, you don't know what the book is like.

[Dark Knight]

I'd call that a point against it, personally.

[Dark Knight]

While my immediately preceding post was not wrong, I recently made myself finish the first volume, solely on... well, the say-so of someone you guys don't know.

It's not as bad as I thought.

[Aries]

I just finished book 2. I'm honestly not impressed so far, I actually don't like the mix of slice-of-life and HOLY SHIT IT'S A BOSS FIGHT!

Meh.

I'll finish reading them, only because I love my husband and because I'll be seeing the movie.

[gland]

Originally Posted by Dark Knight

I'd call that a point against it, personally.

How is it a bad thing that you have to read the whole book in order to get the book?

[Dark Knight]

Because twist endings are only good if they're faithful to the rest of the work. If you read an entire book expecting a romantic comedy, mostly because it's playing out as a romantic comedy, and then at the end they throw in an alien abduction with no prior hint that this would be plausible in a world like this, yes, I'd call that a bad ending.

But that's me. And I don't mean that in the snarky way, I just mean that this is how my tastes run and other people's mileage may vary.

[gland]

I just re-read, and while it didn't explode until the end of volume one, they were peppering us with the fact that this world's version of normal isn't quite our world's version of normal all the way through.

[Dark Knight]

Okay.

I'd still argue that teasing a purely romantic comedy in a not-quite-our-world is still markedly different than what it ended up being.

[M'onel]

Seen more commercials and frankly, it's starting to look cheesy to me. If this is supposed to get me to read the books, it ain't working.

Plus, there could be deeper issues at hand. Movies like this and Kick-Ass and to some degree, Watchmen, movies that may, in some form, satirize and parody the superhero genre are usually seen in Hollywood as signs that a genre has played out and that it's time to move on to the next cash-cow genre.

Factor in the gross takes so far for those movies (and c'mon, do you really expect Pilgrim to be a block-buster?) and they may be right. Reboots of existing series like Spider-man is a telling sign as well.

That's why a lot of Hollywood is banking on the success next year of Green Lantern, Thor, and Cap. There has to be signs that the superhero genre isn't a complete wash-out for Hollywood to continue making them.