Agent Palmer

A Special Report by Agent Ellipsis

Anyone who has read The Killing Joke knows it’s gritty. It’s disturbing, yet oddly satisfying, as the horror of helplessness, madness, and darkness unfolds across the pages.

Written by Alan Moore, it is easily considered not only his greatest work, but one of DC’s most iconic aspects of Batman, Joker, and Oracle lore. Finally, 28 years after its conception, it is being made into an animated film.

On November 20, Jessica Jones made the leap from the pages of Marvel Comics to the small screen, or any screen, with the release of her very own Netflix series.

This is Marvel’s second Netflix series which follows the success of Daredevil this past spring.

Early on Jessica Jones is full of subplots as it was designed to be. Taking its cues from classic film noir, these subplots are all connected, but they are just as much devices to confuse and complicate a story as they are a part of that story. As a classic film noir show Jessica Jones dramatically succeeds.

In order to increase sales of toys marketers have always used Saturday Morning Cartoon commercial breaks, but some went to the extreme creating whole new brand monsters that took on a lives of their own. From He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to Transformers, Care Bears, G.I. Joe, Pound Puppies, and countless others, let’s look at the franchises of in variety of mediums spawned from toys, in order to increase the sale of those toys.

Keep in mind this was 30 years ago, before the marketers of today realized that releasing toys to a movie, will boost a movie.

Is it Avengers: Age of Ultron best movie yet? No, I don’t think so… Is it the most important movie to date in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yes, it is and more importantly it will be and that is exactly why I don’t think it is the best.

I enjoyed it, it was very entertaining, but it just seems like as a film it was trying to do too much.

The Great Allentown Comic Con’s 5th Anniversary Show was this past weekend and I was there. I had three things in mind, buy some things to read either comic book or just book, buy some art and hear Nichelle Nichols speak. And I was successful on all three fronts.

So, why bury the lead, the last thing I did during my infiltration was go to a panel where Nichelle Nichols did a short 40 minute Q & A, it was fantastic! She is a fascinating woman. She spoke of the vision of the future that Gene Roddenberry had and of her fellow actors, directors and the new and old Trek.