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slashingdisneypasta · 4 years

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Slashers / Horror Villains as: Animated (Children’s) Movie Villain Songs

+ A Nightmare Before Christmas

First of all, its mostly Disney. Second of all, I hope you know that this was a struggle for me.

Also, note, Bubba will be the only Leatherface in this post and Billy and Stu will be the only Ghostfaces. There is Norma Bates though, so sort of a consolation.

There are links to videos on YouTube ^^

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Billy Loomis and Stu Macher / Ghostface: Playing With the Big Boy’s Now (Hotep and Huy, Prince of Egypt)

Well... they’re part of the ‘big boys’, now! They are part of the Slashers group that, uh, ‘inspired them’. Imagine instead of Egyptian Gods, they’re chanting Slasher names.

[HUY] Pick up your silly twig, boy [HOTEP & HUY] You're playing with the big boys now! Ha ha ha ha!

[EGYPTIAN PRIESTS] By the power of Ra Mut, Nut, Khnum, Ptah Sobek, Sekhmet, Sokar, Selket Anubis, Anukis Hemsut, Tefnut, Meshkent, Mafdet...

Chop Top and Nubbins + Bubba Sawyer / Leatherface: Kidnap Mr Sandy Claws (Lock, Shock and Barrel, Nightmare Before Christmas)

I mean... they aren't Drayton’s minions, but they are like this XD

I say that we take a cannon, aim it at his door And then knock three times And when he answers Sandy Claws will be no more

Yes you're so stupid, think now If we blow him up to smithereens We may lose some pieces And then Jack will beat us black and green

Kidnap the Sandy Claws Tie him in a bag

Chucky / Charles Lee Ray: In The Dark Of The Night (Rasputin, Anastasia)

Mystical man? Check! ‘Betrayal’ (As far as he sees it)? Check. Made them pay? Check; I think Nica, Sarah and all the other families he destroys throughout the franchise can attest to that. And ‘One little girl got away’? Well Andy isn’t a girl, but yeah. Check.

I was once the most mystical man in all Russia When the royals betrayed me they mad a mistake My curse made each of them pay But one little girl got away Little Anya, beware Rasputin's awake

Drayton Sawyer: Don’t Fall In Love (Forte, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas)

Its such a crochety, unessessarily rude way of describing relationships to someone! I mean, I understand completely and resonate deeply with the desire to be alone and not be responsible for anyone else, but- come on! Beast doesn't share your view! Let it go!

Its just like Drayton’s reaction to Bubba having a crush. Super cool video too!

As soon as your heart rules your head Your life is not your own It's hell when someone's always there It's bliss to be alone

And love of any kind is bad A dog, a child, a cat They take up so much precious time Now, where's the sense in that?

Freddy Krueger: No More Mr Nice Guy (Rothbart, Swan Princess)

A man with an uncomfortable relationship with the main female character pretending to be normal and not homicidal for a while before unlocking more power and letting there inner bad guy loose and taking great pleasure in it? Sounds familiar. They also have a similar vocabulary- except of course Rothbart is rated G.

I'll become that nasty, naughty, dirty, spiteful Wicked, wayward, way-delightful Bad guy I was born to be

Lyin' loathesome, never-tender Indiscreet repeat offender No more Mr Nice Guy That's not me

Inkubus: The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind (Professor Rattigan, The Greatest Mouse Detective)

‘Inkubus’ is literally a movie about him listing all his crimes over the centuries and messing with the police force because he has a bone to pick with a detective. Sounds pretty similar to me! Listen to the song! ^^

Now comes the real tour de force Tricky and wicked, of course! My earlier crimes were fine for their times But now that I'm at it again An even grimmer plot has been simmering In my great criminal brain!

Jason Voorhees: Despicable Me (About Gru, Despicable Me)

I... this is all I could think of!! But the more I listen to it and read the lyrics... it f i t s Jason so well! XD Please just let this slide; I know Gru isn't really a villain but he is at the start!! Let me have this.

Why ask why? Better yet "Why not?" Why are you marking x on that spot? Why use a blow torch isn't that hot? Why use a chainsaw? Is that all you got? Why do you like seeing people in shock? But my question to you is "Why not?" Why go to the bank and stand in line Just use a freeze gun it saves me time. I'm havin' a bad, bad day It's about time that I get my way Steam rollin' whatever I see, Huh, despicable me I'm havin' a bad, bad day If you take it personal that's okay Watch, this is so fun to see Huh, despicable me

Jennifer Check: Trust In Me (Kaa, The Jungle Book)

She’s a succubus demon. Tempting boys into a safe-feeling, docile state so she she can strike is her thing.

Will cease to resist Just relax Be at rest Like a bird In a nest

Trust in me Just in me Shut your eyes And trust in me

Mayor Buckman and Granny Boone: Savages (Governor Ratcliffe and the Colonizer’s parts, Pocahontas)

Obviously, because of the (Inaccurate) historical relevance of both movies (Different time’s, same terrible prejudice,) and also because there is definitely a very cult-ish feel about both Governor Ratcliffe’s song and Buckman’s leadership. How easily they’re able to gather support from their people for the most horrible reasons. How horrifying it is to audiences and historians.

They're only good when dead They're vermin, as I said And worse

They're savages! Savages!

Barely even human

Savages! Savages!

Drive them from our shore! They're not like you and me Which means they must be evil We must sound the drums of war!

Michael Myers: The Gospel Truth II (Muses about Hades, Hercules)

In a Disney movie, Michael would have others sing his song about him as he goes about his silent, determined walking XD

If there's one God you don't want to get steamed up It's Hades 'Cause he had an evil plan He ran the underworld But thought the dead were dull and uncouth He was as mean as he was ruthless And that's the gospel truth He had a plan to shake things up And that's the gospel truth

Midnight Man: Oogie Boogie’s Song (Oogie Boogie, Nightmare Before Christmas)

A song about a “Gamblin’ Boogie Man” is perfect for the Midnight Man! He and Oogie could be pals.

Woah! The sound of rollin' dice To me is music in the air 'Cause I'm a gamblin' Boogie Man Although I don't play fair It's much more fun, I must confess When lives are on the line Not mine, of course, but yours, old boy Now that'd be just fine

Norma Bates: Mother Knows Best Reprise (Mother Gothel, Tangled)

Norma is soooooo so so so unbelievably manipulative towards Norman (And Dylan. It just works better on Norman) and this song absolutely presents that. She can go from sweet, loving mother to spiteful, heinous bitch in two seconds if Norman or Dylan don't do what or react the way she wants them to.

Likes you? Please, Rapunzel, that's demented

This is why you never should have left! Dear, this whole romance that you've invented, Just proves you're too naive to be here Why would he like you? Come on now, really! Look at you, you think that he's impressed? Don't be a dummy Come with mummy

Pamela Voorhees: My Lullaby (Zira, The Lion King 2)

In a opposite approach to a villainous mother to Norma, we have Pam, who was heartbroken by the camp councillors letting her son die and vowed to get revenge. She didn't know she was teaching Jason to be the Crystal Lake killer like Zira did, but she did, and the whole song does have her kind of feel to it also.

Sleep, my little Kovu Let your dreams take wing One day when you're big and strong You will be a kingI've been exiled, persecuted Left alone with no defense When I think of what that brute did I get a little tense But I dream a dream so pretty That I don't feel so depressed 'Cause it soothes my inner kitty And it helps me get some rest

Patrick Bateman: Cruella De Vil (Arthur, 101 Dalmations)

Never before was there a song that described audiences reaction to watching Patrick living in his daily life and hearing his thoughts better then this one.

Cruella De Vil Cruella De Vil If she doesn't scare you No evil thing will To see her is to Take a sudden chill Cruella, Cruella De Vil

The curl of her lips The ice in her stare All innocent children Had better beware She's like a spider waiting For the kill Look out for Cruella De Vil

Pennywise (Both): You’re Only Second Rate (Jafar, Return of Jafar)

Mostly for the video and Jafar’s energy in this scene actually XD So many transformations, so many tasteless puns! I was going to give this to Freddy but its the closest thing to Penny I could think of.

Go ahead and zap me with the big surprise Snap me in a trap, cut me down to size I'll make a great escape It's just a piece of cake You're only second rate You know your hocus-pocus isn't tough enough And your mumbo-jumbo doesn't measure up Let me pontificate upon your sorry state You're only second rate

Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie Hewitt: Hellfire (Judge Claude Frollo, Hunchback of Notre Dame)

A nasty filthy man who think’s he’s in the right despite being the biggest creep and monster ever? Mhm.

*Note: I honestly didn't notice the deformed baby, Quasimodo/Thomas link until the day after I wrote this. Don't know how I feel about it. I mean, Hoyt is actually nice, in his way, to Thomas so the connection isn't totally there but onwards:

Beata Maria You know I am a righteous man Of my virtue I am justly proud

Beata Maria You know I'm so much purer than The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd

End of Post! 🌼

(Bonus’ under the cut)

I did think of other connections which I obviously didnt landed on but still have merit! Here!

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher: ‘Gaston’ was considered, but that would have just been a joke XD I don’t think Stu is quite as obsessed with Billy as LeFou is with Gaston.

Chucky: Friends on the Other Side. Obviously! That link was actually what inspired me to make this post. In The Dark of Night fits to a T though.

Freddy Krueger: You’re Only Second Rate! Ah, its perfectttt. But No More Mr Nice Guy fits better. If I ever do a Slashers as Disney Villains post, he’ll be Jafar for sure. Or Hades. Or Scar. Or Oogie. Probably Hades. You know what? Without the gore and blood and explicit sexual references, Freddy could be a Disney Villain himself. Its not like Disney hasn't towed the line before with perverted villains. >_> (Jafar and Frollo)

Jason and Pamela Voorhees: Mother Knows Best! Of course.

Jennifer Check: Love is For Peasants (Barbie Island Princess) Because Jennifer thinks like this:

Men? <<< Literally anything else.

Patrick Bateman: How Can I Refuse? (From Barbie Princess and the Pauper) XD If Patrick were a kids movie villain, he would totally join the ranks of corrupted usurpers pretending to be trustworthy royal advisory staff. Also ‘Let It Die’, that little interruption part of another song that O’Hare sings in the Lorax and ‘How Bad Can I be?’.

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hellzyeahwebwielingessays · 4 years

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The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 30: AMJ #4.2

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This post is something of an exception in my coverage of AMJ. Originally I hoped to dedicate just one post per issue but changed that to two due to the length. The pages I’ll be covering here though are exceptional.

Not just because I had so much to say about them, but because they cut to the heart of the story. These pages present Williams’ attempt to finally justify MJ’s actions throughout the story. As such I’ve opted to single these pages out in this instalment and continue covering the rest of the story next time.

If you want the context for the preceding pages check out the previous post.

The pages revolve around MJ chatting with Master Matrix. It turns out he knows ‘McKnight’ is really Quentin Beck. She thanks him for keeping their secret. Master Matrix asks MJ how Spider-Man feels about her working with Mysterio; I guess he knows about her connection to Peter too.

MJ gets a little flustered by this question. MM continues that he’s questioned how to raise this subject with Spidey himself. MJ relates to this and explains that Peter knows she’s working on a Mysterio movie, just not with the man himself. MM asks why she’s deceiving Peter. MJ explains she isn’t being deceitful on purpose (um…yeah she is) but is just protecting Beck because she believes in what he is doing.

MM makes the (incredibly obvious) point that Mysterio is a villain and Spidey is good. He elaborates that they are both hiding the truth from a good person to collaborate with a villain. MJ responds by asking if MM understands the concept of redemption. He says he does.

Lord have mercy, this page is awful.

Now I should be upfront. I didn’t read Spider-Man/Deadpool so maybe I need to be set straight about certain important details from that title. I don’t know how or why Master Matrix knows who Spider-Man is for example. My brief research tells me he was rescued by Peter’s parents or something. I don’t recall seeing anything about Mysterio when I read up on him, so I don’t know how or why he’d know ��McKnight’ is really Beck. Maybe his abilities allow for him to deduce that fact? If not, then that’s yet another hole in the story.

Anyway, the point is he knows Peter is Spider-Man, keeps in contact with him and by extension knows about (or has deduced) MJ’s connection to Peter. What’s less clear is how Mary Jane knows about MM’s connection to Peter. We’ve never seen them talk about him or any of Peter’s adventures with Deadpool for that matter.

I’m willing to accept that personally I guess. As I went over in parts 3-5, Peter does clue MJ into major events in his Spidey career. I suppose befriending a living Weapon of Mass Destruction would count as something your partner ought to know about. This ultimately hurts Williams’ own narrative though. It demonstrates that Peter has been very honest and open with MJ whilst she hasn’t. It also further proves that Peter would inform MJ of his hero career, which would include Beck and his past crimes. Therefore MJ would very likely know about all the stuff Beck did in ‘Guardian Devil’ and just about everything else we discussed in parts 3-5. And yet, she’s still getting chummy with a murderous, sexually violating monster.

We then come to the lame-ass attempt by Williams to address MJ’s motivations for this arc. First of all, Williams thinks now this is the best time to address that elephant in the room? It’s the penultimate issue of the arc (originally the entire series)! This shouldn’t been pinned down by issue #1 or #2 at the absolute latest.

Lateness aside, Williams’ attempt (unsurprisingly) utterly fails. MJ comes off almost childish when she says she isn’t ‘being deceitful on purpose’. A quick look at the definition of deceit proves that to be bullshit.

It’s the equivalent of saying “I’m not lying. I just happen to be withholding certain truths.”

Yeah that’s lying by omission, which is a form of deceit!

As for her justification for deceiving Peter, I’ve gone over that more than enough. MJ wouldn’t believe in what Beck is doing. Or at least she never would to the point where she’d lie to Peter the way she is or protect a terrible person like Beck.

The audacity of Williams to bring up how MJ is protecting a villain and deceiving a hero is unbelievable. It’s honestly left me flabbergasted. So, Williams KNOWS that’s what she’s written MJ as doing? She KNOWS that but she’s still having MJ do it? Or is she really just incredibly unaware and paying lip-service?

Maybe the next page will enlighten us.

So MJ just asked if MM understands redemption, which he does intimately. She follows up by saying he’d understand then that it’s not a simple switch from bad to good. Rather, it’s a journey that takes a lot of work; work Beck is putting in right now. MJ feels she is protecting Beck’s ‘journey’. It isn’t that she thinks Peter incapable of understanding this (quite the contrary), she just hasn’t figured out how to tell him. She doesn’t want him to worry about her and feels he is already got enough on his mind.

MM then asks what if MJ has misjudged Beck? To this she concedes she will have deceived Pete, which makes her feel sick.

MM then reveals he was created as a WMD and that he is sure Beck knows tha. He elaborates that when Beck approached him, he presumed it was for the sake of efficiency. However, now he realises it’s because Beck wanted to give him the chance to make something meaningful. In this sense Beck has used his own journey of redemption to protect MM’s own. MM feels utterly indebted to Beck for this.

MJ responds that all MM can do is earn that debt in reverse.

Meanwhile, Diperna has arrived. Screwball has been harassing the journalist with her drones this entire time and continues to do so out of pure fun.

Jesus Christ where to start with this.

MJ is correct that a journey of redemption is more than just a switch from bad to good. It is indeed a long hard journey.

But as I’ve illustrated in parts 9-11, MJ wouldn’t extend the possibility of redemption to Beck given what she knows about him. His actions in this story so far do not reflect someone who’s ‘putting the work in’ at all. He’s evaded the law, broken (and is still breaking) numerous laws to get to this point and shows no signs that he’s going to face the music for his crimes. He’s not even attempted to make amends to the people he’s wronged beyond his old flame Betsy. His attempt with her has been mutated due to MJ to the point where it’s hardly what Beck intended in the first place. Even if it was his ‘apology’ to Betsy would’ve amounted to making her look cool and sexy which by extension glorified himself. Every one of his attempts to help people like Master Matrix have ultimately benefitted himself.

The closest he’s come to honest self-sacrifice, of doing something good purely for the sake of others, was fighting the Savage Six last issue. But even that was selfish to a point. He had personal beef with the Vulture. They were trashing his movie. In defeating them and protecting his staff he was in turn aiding the protection of his life’s work. In contrast, I detailed several instances in part 10 where criminals put themselves on the line to help people selflessly. Boomerang, Black Cat, Sandman, Venom. All of those people risked their freedom and/or their health for Spidey, for innocents or for the grater good.

Beck hasn’t done that yet. Everything he’s done, even if it has protected innocent people, has simultaneously served his own materialistic or egotistical goals. Hell, given the ease with which he dealt with the Six, it barely qualifies as putting himself at risk.

Extending a helping hand to people like himself is not grounds for putting the work in. He’s helping other criminal/dangerous people make something meaningful. So what? Will he be donating the money to the loved ones of the people he’s hurt? Or to the people thsmselves? Is he going to create a trust fund for Gwyneth’s baby? We know he isn’t going to apologise for his evil actions though the film because MJ said so back in issue #1.

MJ is protecting a murderer, a mental abuser, a sexual abuser and a generally horrible person. Someone who wants forgiveness but has not actually demonstrated anything in the way of repentance for his actions. As AMJ laid out, he wants to be forgiven by making everyone understand who he is and why he did what he did.

He (and seemingly MJ and Williams) is confusing understanding with justifying. We can understand how and why people did something bad. That’s very different to justifying it and thereby forgiving them.

Even in the over simplistic good/evil world of super hero comic books this is simply not how redemption works. In addition to the examples I listed in part 10 let’s consider an example from a comic book movie.

Maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s called ‘Spider-Man’ from 2002.

In the film a guy named Peter Parker confronts the man he believes murdered his uncle, the man who raised him. The criminal is scared but not apologetic for what he’s done, and he asks to be given a chance. Peter’s response is.

What about my uncle? Did you give him a chance?

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We can very much apply this to AMJ. Beck wants a chance, MJ is giving him that chance. So I ask:

What about Gwyneth?

What about her parents?

What about her baby?

What about the families of the seniors Beck swindled?

What about the real Cage McKnight’s reputation?

What about all the people terrified by Beck’s tantrum in AMJ #2?

What about all the people Screwball or Kangaroo have hurt?

What about Dr. Winhorst?

What about all the people and all the animals harmed or killed when Doc Ock heated up half the globe?

What about all the people scared or hurt when he faked an alien invasion in ASM v5 #1?

Did Beck ever even hint he gave any of them the slightest chance?

No. He didn’t.

For God’s sake, a terrible story like ‘Venom: Lethal Protector’ wasn’t as naïve or childish as this story. Venom is called out for murdering a man’s son. He acknowledges this but tries to argue he didn’t mean to kill him. The story though doesn’t let him off the hook for it.

If a 1990s Venom mini-series can acknowledge a homicidal maniac shouldn’t be given a chance just because he’s sorry, then why the Hell can’t this story?

There is another great non-comic book example that illustrates this point. It comes from the Doctor Who episode ‘Boom Town’. Whilst not a comic book or superhero story, Doctor Who is often regarded as a cousin of sorts to the former. Marvel even made Doctor Who comics for a long time.

In the episode in question, the Doctor shares a ‘last meal’ with an alien criminal whom he intends to hand over to the authorities.

She is guilty of murder, attempted genocide and fraud and identity theft in the vein of Beck; although she is literally wearing the skin of the person she’s impersonating. To gain the Doctor’s mercy she tries to prove she’s changed, specifically by explaining a time she spared a life. Earlier that day she readied herself to kill a young journalist sniffing around her plans, but refrained upon learning she was pregnant.

The Doctor believes the story but is totally unconvinced. He explains it doesn’t mean anything. Every now and then terrible people on a whim happen to be kind and spare their would-be victims. It’s how they live with themselves.

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Whilst Mysterio is probably nowhere near as bad as the alien criminal, his case for forgiveness is arguably worse.

He’s continuing to steal the real Cage McKnight’s identity, he has never indicated he’s going to continue to help people after the film is completed. He caused panic and would’ve caused harm had a third party (MJ) not intervened to keep him under control. And his equivalent of sparing a life amounts to giving other criminals the chance to help realize his personal vanity project.

Not to mention, MJ and Beck continuously insist upon the movie being something meaningful but how could they possibly know that. A movie isn’t meaningful just because it means something to the film makers. The audience decides if it’s meaningful or not. Frankly Beck’s insistence he’s giving his staff the chance to make something good and meaningful is egotistical. As though the mere act of film making or his own life story is inherently something with artistic merit or something meaningful in the universe.

Yes, some films are. But even then their ability to do something helpful and positive is relatively limited. A piece of media’s practical abilities to positively contribute to the universe is limited compared to say, donating time or money to the needy. At least there you would’ve done something with a definitive impact even if it was a small one. A movie like this might illicit emotions and make some people feel happy, might inspire them to do good, might make them understand themselves or another better. But the key words there are ‘might’ and ‘maybe’.

When you get right down to it, even the most influential movies don’t positively contribute helping people as much as individuals actually actively doing stuff to help others. I mean are we really going to say the ‘Black Panther’ film had as much of a positive impact as the Civil Right Movement?

Absolutely not.

Let’s use a fictional example. Would the stage play about the Fantastic Four (as seen in ASM v5 #25) have been as meaningful as the efforts of the actual Fantastic Four in fighting Galactus?

Absolutely not.

I’m not saying films don’t matter or can’t have a meaningful positive impact. I’m just saying if Beck wanted to achieve the latter, there were better options than making a film about himself.

He could’ve donated his ill-gotten gains to needy communities. Or handed over his technology and techniques to the public? Or used his skills to expose white-collar criminals? Or even have started up a company selling his technology and employing criminals semi-legally reducing the need for them to resort to crime.

But he didn’t. He’s fulfilling his own personal dream and making himself centre stage.

As for MJ lying to Peter because she doesn’t want him to worry and has his own problems, see parts 17-18 for why that’s bullshit. And see parts 19-23 for why Peter, and MJ herself, should be worried about her in this situation. And that was before the Savage Six made them a target, a fact that should have resulted in Peter already being worried.

Hypothetically even if this wasn’t something to worry about, MJ could be open about it with Peter and convince him to relax. He begrudgingly accepted her staying with him during Marvel Knights in spite of the dangers to herself.

She equally made him see sense in ‘Parallel Lives’ after their home had just been attacked.

Whilst this situation is something to be concerned about, if MJ was in fact in no danger, then she could talk Peter around to trusting her.

I’ll also add she’s had plenty of time to figure out ‘how to tell him’ the truth. She knows he’s living with Boomerang so right there that’s a potential route to breaking in the conversation. She could bring up Venom, or Sandman or Felicia. There are multiple people they’ve mutually given chances to that could be used as a way to engage with Peter on this topic. By this comic’s own brand of ‘logic’ those are perfectly viable arguments MJ could use.

Don’t get me wrong. Those are false equivalencies. But I’m just saying Williams’ clearly doesn’t think this situation is any different to those ones, therefore there are plenty of grounds for MJ to talk to Peter about this. She even has MJ say ‘of course’ Peter would understand.

It’s almost like Williams knows that this situation cannot actually be justified. Or she’s injecting contrived false drama for the sake of drama with no mind paid to established characterization.

Hence we get trite like MJ saying she ‘will have deceived’ Peter if she’s wrong about Mysterio. First of all, Williams is again acknowledging how asinine her narrative is. She’s acknowledging that MJ is gambling that her judgement of Beck is on point. Her judgement of a guy who’s power set revolves around misdirection. Second of all, MJ wouldn’t have deceived Peter if she’s wrong. She’s already deceived him and is continuing to do so. Thirdly why exactly does Mary Jane get to be the singular person deciding if it is okay to gamble on Beck’s redemption? Who is she exactly to decide if this murderer and abuser is worth keeping out of jail?

In the real world if such a risk is taken it doesn’t ride upon one person’s decision; at least not in theory.

Let’s move onto Master Matrix. Again, I don’t know enough about him to discuss Beck’s knowledge of him. Maybe it makes sense, or maybe it’s a big question that’s being left unanswered. Regardless, I detest framing Beck as this selfless redeemer through Master Matrix’s subplot. I hate it almost as much as I hate the nonsensical dialogue that follows it.

What the fuck does ‘earning it in reverse’ even mean? I guess it means living up to Beck’s trust? But then why not phrase it that way? Even if that was the intent, see above for why giving MM a chance doesn’t really mean anything. Not to mention, both MM and MJ are just kind of presuming that Beck was in fact being altruistic.

That’s all for now. We’ll resume coverage of the rest of the issue next time.

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tube-thoughts-blog · 6 years

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Vol. 11

Zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

"Groove On Fight" --Sega Saturn-- (Atlus) -1997- *Imagine a Japanese pretty boy version of Christopher Walken with a neo biker / leather cowboy fetish. Now imagine an entire, -wealthy & powerful- "Game of Thrones style" inbred family of them all with some peculiar fetish. They fight it out for control of the family. The matriarchy of the family is two grannies tied back to back like Siamese bondage twins. One fight takes place on the back of an American type bomber plane up above the clouds. That last sentence pretty much speaks to the disturbed nature of a lot of Japanese art after World War 2.* close to 3 stars

Godfrey Ho's "Ninja Commandments" (1987) *Who knew that honky moral issues like pre-marital sex were such problems for Ninjas, or that they liked to party with skanky groupies, and that pretty much all ninjas are not-so-secretly middle age white men.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst --------

*Deadly Prey: Ice T's "The Game"(?), a movie where a guy gets kidnapped by army dudes and hunted for sport only to fight back, this time with a hero who's a Patrick Swayze type bohunk Rambo.* 2 1/2 stars

*Hard Ticket To Hawaii: Skinemax classic about blonde bimbos trying to stop criminal smuggling in an exotic locale. Also, killer, "infectious," cancer-ridden, huge snake.* 2 1/2 stars

*Miami Connection: Lost & found gem of a movie with nearly as many awkwardly awesome moments as Tommy Wiseau's "The Room."* 3 stars

Red Letter agrees that Miami Connection is "The Best of the Worst."

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"Red Earth" aka "Warzard" (Capcom) *A wizard summons up a bunch of kaiju monsters, in scattered epic sites, that only a big lion-man and several other heroes can vanquish from the earth. Typical wizard being a total dickhead, to the rest of magic-impaired mankind, behavior.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Bushido Blade 2" (Playstation 1) *Bloodthirsty Japanese clans have kept up the honor of warring over territory for power for centuries up into modern times, in this game. It's a nice mixture of both old and new worlds, and the music and dialogue is well done, and even the setting and characters (though limited by the blocky polygon look of early 3D). It keeps with "realism" too with one good killing stroke, with a warrior's sword, doing the job. It even has thrills like bikini girls with machine guns.* 2 1/2 stars

"The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 4" (Dark Horse Manga) *Morbid and eccentric tales of a group of Buddhist college students with unique gifts of communicating with corpses littered in strange locations around Japan. They help fill the odd requests of these bodies to be put at peace usually in some morbid way or involving some morbid mystery. Instead of trash "reality" entertainment like Long Island Medium, this much better "talking with the deceased" fiction should be turned into tv entertainment for western audiences. It's so much more interesting and entertaining.* 3 stars

"Savage Reign" (SNK) *This is the Kris Kross of fighters. Kriss Kross being a pair of 12 year old rappers whose record company realized their talent was lacking so they came up with the bright idea to have the duo dress with their clothes backwards. The gimmicks in Savage Reign are plenty. There's a clown who fights with roller skates. A valley-girl swinging around a pink bowling ball. His name is Joker, and she looks like a cleaned up Harley Quinn, come to think of it now. A Vanilla Ice look-a-like sports a Captain America' Canadian tuxedo of denim and stars and stripes. The Ryu style hero, of the game, fights without fireballs but instead a silly boomerang. The big boss is a fancier "cock of the walk" Shao Kahn throwing his punches with fists covered in boxing gloves. Sickly serene backgrounds include a generic Disneyland theme park and an underground cow milking gang hideout that is almost as weird as something out of "Naked Lunch."* 2 stars

The Spoony Experiment: Clones of Bruce Lee *When Bruce Lee tragically died during the height of his career, movie producing jerks didn't let it stop them from abusing his legacy. Tons of Bruce Lee impersonators popped up and a sub-genre of exploitation movies was born. They were called Brucesploitation flicks. In this one, it's about as shameless as it gets with a plot about cloning Bruce Lee before his body has even grown cold and using the clones for nefarious purposes.* close to 2 stars for the sleazy, cheesy movie and 3 stars for Spoony's review

"Fight For Life" (The Last Official Atari Jaguar Game) --1996-- *Show a kid, today, an Atari 2600 game and they'll think you're giving them something like an ink blot test. Having witnessed an Atari 2600 game, back in the day, it felt like I was standing on the edge of the digital future. The Atari Jaguar promised that brave, new, digital future with their doomed Jaguar gaming machine. I remember the first time I saw Sega's Virtua Fighter in an arcade. I did get that "tomorrow feeling." I couldn't wait to take these blocky 3D characters and make them my sandbox toys tossing them around with their ragdoll physics. It was mind blowing. Atari's Fight For Life wanted to be like Virtua Fighter, only it comes off more like a 2600 ink blot test for the imagination, and really painful to the senses. Man, is it ugly and clunky. It's definitely not "epic," but I can compare it to something else that is "epic." The Faith No More "Epic" music video where the fish out of water is flopping its death throes. It's more like that fish than a jaguar.* between 1 and 1 1/2 stars

The Cinema Snob: Karate Girl *Rape revenge exploitation "thriller" circa 1970s about a mute girl from a Turkish village. The kind of movie that Tarantino would rip off elements from and be called a genius later. Also featuring an infamous over-the-top death scene that's become an internet meme.* close to 2 stars for the movie & close to 3 stars for the review

"The Blonde Fury" (1989) *Cynthia Rothrock is the greatest female action star. It had to be said, because it's true. This is a Hong Kong action flick about crazy counterfeiters and quirky investigators. The English dubbing is extra entertaining and the comedy is quite clever.* 3 stars

Black Sails: Season 1 Episode 5 *Finally, a bloody battle, at sea, to go along with the pirate base politics and prostitute abuse.* 3 stars

Hot Package: Pilot (Adult Swim) --2013-- *Spoof of insipid celebrity obsessed shows like E!NEWS and Entertainment Tonight, but with a weird EverythingIsTerrible style obscure internet clip twist. Featuring "hot phone sex" Pat from Access Hollywood and produced by Tim & Eric from Adult Swim.* close to 2 1/2 stars

"Slap Happy Rhythm Busters" (Playstation One) *Filled with quirky characters who use supermoves similar to a Marvel Versus series game & graphics as brightly colored as 'Viewtiful Joe' 'Katamari Damacy' & 'Legend of Zelda Windwaker', Slap Happy will slap you silly with enjoyment.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Slaughter Sport" aka "Tongue of the Fatman" (Razorsoft) Sega Genesis 1991 *Another barbaric battle of death, in a palace pit, hosted by a Jabba the Hutt style freak boss who also looks like a shirtless Eric Cartman, in his underwear, with a hideous face and tongue on his fat rolls of a belly. Tech-abominations like a cybernetic chicken, fierce sex slave warrior chicks, gassy gargoyles, spider-women, bad boy white rappers, and other mutated freaks of the wasteland compete for the hunger and amusement of Mondu, the fatman. His pet sand-shark finishes off the losers.* running from close to 2 stars down to 1 star

"Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters: Melee" (x-Box) *This has almost everything a fan of kaiju destruction could want. Just about every Tokyo stomping monster is in it, and playable. Only thing missing is frightened citizens running about pointing at "Gojira." Plus, I think the voices over the airwaves should sound Asian. Points for the quirky bits like a UFO hovering over attacking and Mothra getting in on the action.* close to 3 stars

"Rakuga Kids" *Some brats battle their stuffed animals around their playrooms and neighborhood that look like they're out of a pop-up storybook. It's sort of Street Fighter 2 meets Toy Story 2. Animated similar to Rugrats and Adult Swim's Home Movies.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Dragoon Might" -Arcade- (Konami) --1995-- *The fancy presentation of this game reminds me of 2009's 3D spectacle, Avatar. It makes me wanna reach out and pick a low hanging piece of pretty fruit and bite into it. Yet, there's a pit. The artistry and poetry looks at times like it's coming from a Crouching Tiger, but hidden in the bushes, ready to pounce, is a shirtless guy in torn jeans and brandishing a butcher knife. It's just goodtime trash stealing your quarters.* 2 1/2 stars

"Kaiser Knucle" (Arcade) *This is the Vanilla Ice "Cool As Ice" of Street Fighter 2 rip offs. You can play as Fred Flinstone's daughter or "Barts" Yes with an S (teen biker Bart Simpson?) & Ryu w/ flowing mullet, or even "Boggy" who is a MC Hammer wannabe. "Don't hurt 'em!"* 2 stars

Nostalgia Critic: Rise of the Commercials *A look back on when silly advertising really RULED! "Don't put it in your mouth." That is unless it's been properly branded by corporate America and parent approved.* 3 stars

Double Dare: Super Sloppiest Moments *Kids, and their mostly whitebread families, get covered in green slime.* 2 1/2 stars

Jack & Triumph: Commercial *It starts off funny with making fun of Dennis Leary for stealing Bill Hicks' comedy act. Then it gets typical with the whole Alan Thicke showing up and we're supposed to accept that he's now "ironically funny" because he's a square former celebrity acting in an offensive way that we never saw on his old tv show. That's the same kind of lame shit that media is always trying to do in a hipster way with all these former celebrities from the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Robert Smigel can do so much better, see TV Funhouse for example.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Master Ninja 1 *Lee Van Cleef makes a convincing wild west badass. Surrounded by 70s style slacker dude in a muscle van, mousey & young Demi Moore, hicksploitation villains, and obvious kung fu stuntman doing his action work -Lee struggles to make a convincing martial arts badass.* 2 stars with riffing between 1 1/2 and 2 stars without riffing

"Project Justice" --Sega Dreamcast-- (Capcom) *I believe it was the 70s, that era of great television, that first introduced the novelty of students teaming up with a teacher in the classic "Welcome Back, Kotter." The 80s went further, with this, having society's school aged misfits solving problems of gangs of bullies terrorizing the halls of school or jerks who wanted to close down the local youth center and even the retro cheese staple of ski slope jerks challenging our youthful heroes to a race for control of the ski slope club's mountain. This game is similar, in nature, and has the extra benefit of featuring quirky Japanese style characters and aesthetics.* close to 3 stars

"Last Bronx" (Sega Model 2 Arcade) *Consumer electronics have always been trendy with yuppies. When home entertainment centers became hot, everybody had to have one. Digital watches were on every wrist. A Sony walkman around every neck and in every pocket. Still, there was always a stigma about technology, whenever it was new or in development. At the turn of the 21st century, few would have imagined people lining up around the streets to get each new Apple computer product. Same with gaming, it was a kids novelty, and didn't have the online social media culture that it enjoyed after their was a broadband connection and a Sony Playstation 2 in most every living room across the globe. In the 90s testing stage for high end electronics and gaming, Japan was the tech giant. This game says "Last Bronx" but it's more like "Neo Tokyo." It had to have been pretty revolutionary for the time, and yet it looks very much like some thing most of us western yuppies would turn away at.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop, the series: Officer Missing *"Winter is coming".... Land of the Dead... The Purge.... A Christmas Carol (Well, maybe not that one), Robocop did it first.* close to 2 1/2 stars

The Gong Show with Dave Attell: Season 1 Episode 8 *This show yips off into the sunset (cancelled, deservingly, I'm guessing) like a balloon animal dog from the sphincter of a sword swallower. It was riding a flaming pogo stick. The straw that broke the camel's back was heavy metal cookie monster or large man in diaper strip tease.* 2 stars

Robert Crumb: Despair *"You may not think it's funny, but I've got a morbid sense of humor."* close to 3 stars

"Power Instinct: Matrimelee" (Atlus) --Neo Geo-- *The creepy family members, from "Groove On Fight," are back. This time they're fighting it out, on a televised American Idol type stage, Jerry Springer style. The prize is a hand in marriage. Given its pedigree, and Japanese setting, it's weird as fuck, yet very surprisingly charming.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Kill Or Be Killed" (1980) *Our villain: an escaped Nazi seeking vague revenge by hosting a "Enter the Dragon" type death tournament. Our hero: a mullet-headed, shirtless, karate badass in a tight pair of bell-bottom jeans. He's out to save his girlfriend from the Nazi. Our wildcard: a Game of Thrones type scheming dwarf helping out our karate hero. Our story: pure grindhouse chop sockey cinema.* close to 3 stars

"Rabbit" (Sega Saturn) *Presentation of this game is nice. It reminds me of the new HD Rayman games' colorful eye candy and whimsy joined together with a clever Cartoon Network cartoon like Regular Show or Adventure Time. The fighters each have a beast or spirit animal. It reminds me of sports fanatics and their team mascots. If so many animals weren't endangered, sports fans would be worse than an old school Ruskie with a dancing bear. There would be a stadium full of Eagles fans each with their own personal bald eagle to show off. Dolphins fans would have a kids swimming pool, in the living room beneath the big screen, sporting a live dolphin who they'd feed anchovies off of their pizza to. Another thing about these fighting games, why are all the people in the background so unaffected by the brawls? They're always nicely eating a bowl of noodles in an outdoor cafe or riding a bicycle with a monkey or.....* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Waku Waku 7" (Sunsoft) -1996- *While watching lemmings hop around musically, on this game, I had an epiphany. Fellas we are never gonna get around to building those war robots out of our spare lawnmower and washing machine parts. Ladies, our obese house cats aren't gonna magically start talking and giving us humorous life advice to share on social media. Don't fret, we'll always have the Japanese to create our crazy dreams. That is unless a giant, radiated salamander, with a taste for human sushi, crawls up on the sands of some south Pacific beach.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Streets of Rage 3" (SEGA) *It's a typical beat 'em up story. The evil Mr. X is controlling the city with his band of street punks. Our heroes: Dr. Zan (the bald fu-manchu sporting head of a martial arts sensei badass on top of a cyborg body riding around on rocket skates), this ninja chick in a short minskirt, a blonde Ken Masters look-a-like kung fu street fighter, and a token 90s black kid who loves basketball so much he won't put down his b'ball. They have to battle through wave after wave of mercs and pick up turkey dinner power ups.* 2 1/2 stars

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst --------

Russian Terminator: *"that's what friends ARE! for" also an Anna Nicole look-a-like, a Kenny Rogers look-a-like, and a ninja.* 2 very awkward stars

Ninja Vengeance: *"Ninja" (a horrible one) John Tesh look-a-like on the run from the Klan in the backwoods of a hicksploitation town.* 1 1/2 stars

Never Too Young To Die: *Heart-throb John Stamos, sexy "Vanity" who's a Prince protege, and chick with a dick Gene Simmons is the rockstar who plays the over the top villain.* 2 stars

Red Letter Media ranks them best to worst as Russian T., Never Too Y., and Ninja V.*

---------------------------------

Freddy Krueger in "Mortal Kombat" (2011) *Freddy mocked the rising popularity of video games in "Freddy's Dead." Two decades later, he returns to the mockery. Released a couple years after the toothless remake, this tongueless appearance by Freddy is sorely missing Robert Englund's macabre wordplay.* 1 1/2 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Identity Crisis ----

*Jeff Conaway, and the sheriff from Friday the 13th: Part 6, give this episode a level of Tales from the Crypt "star power." The story is the 'Family Ties' zeitgeist of the its time period. The spirit of the 60s (hippies) versus the spirit of the 80s (yuppies).* close to 3 stars

*Teenage pound puppies. Emo pound puppies.* 1 1/2 stars for most of the episode 2 1/2 stars for the Freddy dreamhouse sequences

---------------------------

Forensic Files: Postal Mortem *Radioshack enthusiast who's a 'Hercules Bullseye Bomber' and master forger of Mormon historical documents.* 2 1/2 stars

Wizards and Warriors: Skies of Death *Doomsday cannon on the cliffs of doom.* 3 stars

Attack On Titan: Episode 2 *Giving a new meaning to "in your face." A term that I don't care for, but here it comes to represent humongous, naked, grinning humans stomping up in one's personal space to chow down on that person like a corndog. The emotions of the kids, and the dread of the situation for them, keeps everything from getting too out of hand as a spectacle.* 3 stars

The Cinema Snob: The Pierre Kirby Saga *A more-than-competent action badass from a handful of less-than-competent Hong Kong action exploitation "movies."* 3 stars for Snob's retrospect and close to 2 stars for the "movies"

Look Around You: Iron *Point point zero point, ring the bell and the experiment can begin within the twinkling of an eye that is hidden behind a metal face shackle.* 2 1/2 stars

VH1 Classics --- Pop Up Video --- (The Big 80's) -------

a-ha - "Take On Me": Few Americans stuck around to notice that this internationally popular Swedish band lasted long after their early 1980s one hit wonder and only broke up after the 1994 Winter Olypics in which they were featured European band.* 3 plus stars for the pop ups and 3 classic MTV stars for the original video

Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield": 30 year old Pat portrayed a 16 year old runaway "too controversial for MTV prostitute" in this video.* 3 plus stars with pop ups and close to 3 stars MTV classic without

John Cougar - "Jack & Diane": One guy lived in a coma for 37 years. He wasn't doing a lot of handclapping and air drumming like Johnny Cougar was doing in this video.* 3 stars with pop ups between 2 1/2 and 3 stars without

Lionel Richie - "Hello": Lionel loves for all of his video vixens to have the same hairstyle as he does.* 3 stars with pop ups 2 1/2 stars, cheesy stars, without pop ups

Van Halen - "Hot For Teacher": This unruly music video caused the child stars to eventually become unruly like the real life Van Halen.* 3 plus stars with pop ups 3 sleazy stars without pop ups

--------------------------

Viper: Mind Games *A sleeper saboteur, a vixen viper, and a truckload of disease.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Twisted Tales #10 ----------------- (Bruce Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Bill Wray, Rick Geary)

Beer: A story of ribbing greenhorns up where the tree-line ends and the green turns to white snowy mountains, and there be yeti's who drive a hard bargain and a sled.* 3 stars

One For The Money: A cat-burglar gets caught and commits murder. He assumes a bear-suit disguise and flees to the woods where he gets gunned down by hunters.* 2 1/2 stars

Hatchet Job: Scientists go back and time and bumble trying to solve the Lizzie Borden murders. ha.* 2 1/2 stars

Two For The Show: A retelling of the earlier cat-burglar tale. This time the party guest kills the intruder, then takes the jewels for himself. Instead of getting shot by a pair of hunters, he gets mauled by a mother grizzly bear. The irony.* close to 3 stars

A haggard man buys a bed from a used store for his sick daughter to rest on her deathbed as she gets out of the hospital. That night, he's visited by the ghost of a girl haunting the bed that died in it, years earlier, in a torn down orphanage fire.* 3 stars, I guess...

Poison in the Pantry: A miserable and mistreated wife and stepmother puts rat poison in the family's soup. She dreams of even better days, from behind bars.* 3 stars

-------------------------------

Hill Street Blues: Life. Death. Eternity... *Etcetera.* 3 stars

X Files: Tooms *Skinner, the Smoking Man, and one of the best "monster" villains ever on the show.* 3 stars

Twitch City: I'm Fat and I'm Proud *Every episode of every tv show ever on tape. And almost everything else a slacker could ever want, for all seasons, except love? And the ability to exit comfortably into society.* 3 stars

Real Pulp Comics #1 *Perverse and humorous tales of skid row lowlifestyle in the babyboom generation's peak.* 2 1/2 stars

Max Headroom: Neurostim *Football, Fast-Food, Fantasy. counter-Fucking-revolutionary.* 3 stars

Farscape: Nerve *Infiltrating a Peacekeeper base, and meeting the Peacekeeper's Darth Vader (Scorpius).* 3 stars

Look Around You: Brain *"Pretty smart for something that looks like a common garden cauliflower."* close 3 stars

Forensic Files: Micro Clues *Tiny communities of freshwater creatures ring out truth and justice from the lungs of a drowned boy of a Swiss village.* 2 stars

Kingdom Hospital: Season 1 Episode 10 *Call the doctor, call the nurse, these guys (King and Lars) are goofy and getting worse.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

---Animal Planet--- I Was Bitten: The Walker County Incident *"Animal Planet, surprisingly human." Unsurprisingly stupid. Far more entertaining than the usual (Finding Bigfoot) cryptozoology reality tv whore idiots. Points for the twist ending prank gotcha moment.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

======= Trash TV ---- Seasons Finale ------ Marathon ===================

Forensic Files: Something's Fishy *The cyanide tainted Excederin pain reliever panic of the early 90s.* 2 1/2 stars

Forensic Files: Sealed With A Kiss *Psycho teacher stalks herself and then frames a rival faculty member.* close to 3 stars

Forensic Files: Deadly Parasites *Shit leaked into Lake Michigan contaminates the Milwaukee water supply and kills over a hundred people.* 2 1/2 stars

American Horror Story --- Murder House: Afterbirth *The "Murder House" is back on the market at a reduced prices. Also, ghosts can slit other ghosts' throats and they bleed ghost blood. Who knew? They even like to celebrate the season of giving (Christmas) with all the trimmings of the living.* either 1 star or 3 stars for a balls out finale

American Horror Story --- Asylum: Madness Ends *Lana Winters (the reporter from AHS: Asylum) is no Edison Carter (the reporter from Max Headroom). And so concludes this chapter of American Melodrama. Horror's end is supposed to be wrapped up in neat little bows of tenderness... EH? No? Ok.* 2 1/2 stars, I guess

American Horror Story --- Coven: Go To Hell *"I made you die those little deaths." Hell is a fried chicken shack. Ghosts need passports for travel. Who knew? Paula Deen isn't really sorry. She's just sorry that she was caught.* close to 3 stars

American Horror Story --- Coven: The Seven Wonders

*Welcome to the World Series of witchcraft. Let the Harry Potter games begin.

I especially got a chuckle out of the girls just wanna have fun teleportation game of tag that happened right after the hippie witch got stuck in her own personal "8th grade biology dissection of a frog" hell.

It would seem like black humor, but I think it's not meant to be. It's just poor writing.

Take for instance how the redheaded hag/nag says that the new supreme witch can't have a "Whitewater scandal" to be a blemish on her new leadership.

So, she demands to be burned alive in the most soap opera dramatic and laughable way possible to the Stevie Nicks music that's playing throughout the show (the show even begins like a Stevie Nicks music video. *rolls eyes*).

Since the new Coven is going public (kind of like a corporation joining the New York Stock exchange and opening all their books up, or whatever), one would think that committing an act of murder (the witch burning) might somehow leak out and be frowned upon eventually leading to scandal.

Anyway, that aside, "The Axe Man" and "Fiona" carry the show with their charisma and moody moments together, as usual.

We get another feel good ending, for some reason, because that's horror, according to the producers of this show and the Fox musical GLEE.

Why are these guys pretending to do horror?

I did appreciate Fiona's return from the dead, before dying again (Ha), reminding me of Interview With A Vampire's scene where Tom Cruise crawls out of the swamp after being gatorbait left for dead by his gloomy boyfriend and porcelain doll daughter.

Also, in closing, Fiona's version of hell was quite fitting and moody compared to the pretentious and childish versions of hell for all the other characters.

For example; the annoying good teenager chick's hell beat out the annoying bad teenager chick's hell for level of awfulness.

And that was an accomplishment.

The bad chick's hell was being stuck on a Hollywood musical that she didn't like. *Snot*

The good chick's hell was having her James Dean wannabe boyfriend breaking up with her every day. *Vomit*

I guess hell is happening here on earth for every emo 16 year old all the time.

I have already wasted too many words on most of this pile stinky fish guts.*

running from around 1 1/2 stars a lot of the time up to 2 1/2 stars at different moments

==========================================================================

"Sacred Cow Halloween Special" circa 1993 (All Hallow's Eve? Why not? It's June) *Early 1990s public access tv special featuring a lot of low-fi indie music videos from bands who don't give a shit and live call in guests to the hosts and Bill Hicks in hell. Plus the legend, Bill Hicks, pulls out the home video footage of where he stood in the neighboring cow pasture, and ranted about the government, while Janet Reno rolled tanks with flamethrowers through the walls of a crazy cult so that they could charbroil children. Yep, have a happy trick r' Summer treat and roast in the heat.* more than 2 1/2 stars

"Beyond Belief" =================================

*Early 90s Nickelodeon took time to educate kids, where modern Nick tries to sell them tweeny bopper pop star insipid kid sitcoms.

Stories here include:

The City of the Dead that lies beneath Paris.

History lesson about how the Greeks burned half the Roman, enemy, fleet using solar energized shields.

Sadly poetic tale of The Elephant Man and his time in a London hospital.

Important message about conservation and protecting endangered animals. "Don't cut down the rainforest." Man, I have fond memories of "earth friendly" science lessons during my childhood school years. A really hopeful, positive time.

We visit the Cabaret Mechanical Theater featuring robotic dolls & toys (creepy and cool).

Some funny laws, around the world, are discussed like the illegal carrying of ice cream cones in your pocket in Kentucky and so on.

Cursed opera causes God to smite anyone the opera singer looks at while singing, "Oh, God smash him!"

We meet a 17 year old autistic genius artist who can draw any London monument or building. Autism was still misunderstood, greatly, during this time.

A visit to an old magician's backyard where he displays to us a new, old trick.

Finally, it's a history lesson about Westerners reluctance at first and then being sold on the idea and practice of embalming the corpses of their loved ones for funeral display.

Great stuff.

-Classic commercials include:

Scram Ball, "the hot new game."

Bubble tape, the bubble gum that's hard for grandma to eat.

Murray mountain bikes are so rugged that they can help a 10 year old outrun his 16 year old bro's pickup truck on rocky terrain.

A Fresh Prince of Bel'Air kid is tired of being told "no" so he eats Raisin Bran for some reason....

A gang of 90s tv kids have a video cam corder scavenger hunt thanks to McDonalds.*

close to 3 stars

=======================================================

Police Squad: A Substantial Gift (WLS7-Chicago) 3 - 4 - 1982 =============

*First we get a commercial for a home electronics and appliance store. Man, the 70s and early 80s had such an ugly color decor thing going on. Putrid greens, tans, yellows, and dingy greys going on everything from fridges to stoves to dishwashers to carpet to vaccuumcleaners. Some nice pics of walls of the very popular, at the time, ghetto blaster boom boxes (nice).

"Blast From The Past," Saturday at 6:30 featuring a dapper dude brushing his wavy hair and a go go chick hula hooping. The 80s were really nostalgic for the 50s.

And, now with a flashing red siren we're told we'll be watching Police Squad "In Color." The show starts out with a woman who's being stuck for cash by a crooked orthodonist. Ha. She kills her loan clerk boyfriend and frames a poor sap trying to get the loan in a double homicide.

A hazy looking Loren cosmetics commercial

followed by a movie trailer for the insipid Oscar bait movie "On Golden Pond."

Leslie Nielsen shows up to the crime, knocking over trash cans with his cop car. Funny sight gag of the meat wagon boys taking out an extra, extra long body on an extra, extra long stretcher. They find a way to work in the old type "Who's on first!?" joke to her formal statement of the crime.

The forensic lab guy is a wacko.

A visit to the victim's wife, and Nielsen rambles on about himself (ha) during her grief.

The killer dame shows up to give her official statement looking like an obvious fink in a new fur coat and feathered boa.

We get a funny scene where one cop's so tall his head is off camera.

"Crisp and clean" "No Caffeine" "Never had it, never will." "Feelin' up with 7 'Up."

A pretty model girl walks around fields of amber grains waving while sporting a "Cover Girl Face."

Benson & Open All Night are part of the ABC Friday Night line up.

Lieutenant Nielsen re-enacts the crime by actually shoothing his fellow officers, leaving a pile of bodies while he ponders the crime. Ha.

Cops and Priests (What do you know about life after death? *hands over a 20$*) seek confidential information from a shoe shine man.

Medieval orthodontist gear is highlighted via willingly happy kids wearing headgear. Leslie does some dental exam physical comedy.

Some oblivious cops sight gags in an elevator. Clever stuff.

Showdown with the dirty dame featuring bad wigs and a bullet filled Mexican standoff from a couple feet away from each other behind trash cans and a sidewalk bus bench. Bullhorn "Give it up!" warning from just as close a length.

New Aim mint is the talk of the whiteboy locker room..

Sexy as heck, and wet in a pool, Lynda Carter likes her lips "wet." Mmmmmm

Stay Tuned for Bossom Budies and "Night of 100 Stars"

Old school, syndicated television. Can't beat it.*

3 stars

=========================================================================

MTV's Ridiculousness with special guest Dr. Drew Pinsky *Normally this poor kid's America's Funniest Home Videos for skateboard wiggers, hosted by a skateboard wigger & his black friend & his airheaded blonde friend, would get zero stars for its unfunny commentary on outdated extreme sports accident videos and mishap/ prank videos.... but since quack pop-psychiatry tv celebrity "doctor" Drew is on here and giving insight into the social problems many of these fools, in these foolish videos, do happen to supposedly have... Well, it's more absurd and tolerable.* close to 2 stars

"Five Fingers Of Death" *It's the formula tale of bullies terrorizing a town, and the heroes finally standing up to them. It could be a western, an 80s surfing/ski resort movie, but here it's a Shaw brothers kung fu flick. Many hipsters will recognize the Kill Bill music that Tarantino stole from this film.* 3 stars

Tom Green's Subway Monkey Hour --2002-- *Tom Green will probably always be infamous for the terrible "Freddy Got Fingered," and he deserves it. This hour long MTV special featuring Tom being the weirdest Westerner possibly ever in Japan is way better than that awful Hollywood mistake of a "movie." In fact, it's a dozen times more interesting than the Jackass movies that borrow the skit after skit format of this special. Add an extra thirty minutes of footage from this trip to Japan, which I'm sure they had, and it would have been a better choice to be released in movie theaters instead of "Freddy Got Fingered."* close to 3 stars

Tales From The Crypt: Lover Come Hack To Me *Car trouble on a desolate road on the honeymoon night. The couple seeks shelter in an old-dark-house. There's a cozy fireplace with a big, medieval axe hanging above it. A storm is raging outside. The bride is a strange, little virgin. The groom is a sleazy bohunk acting surprised to have found a 45 magnum in his glove box. She wonders if he married her for the money (no surprise, he did). Bloody memories haunt the place same as their "romance." It's the perfect setting for mur-der (*Thunder & Lightning!*)...* 3 stars

Six Feet Under: The Will *Diving board death. Pyramid scheme. Backstreet Boy look-a-like douchey boyfriend. Meeting of gay firemen. Breaking up with Ed Begley Jr. Blackmail from beyond the grave. Selling a slightly used coffin at a discount rate. Burning someone's name into your flesh. Buyout offer. Emotional breakdown on the bus that killed the father. Toe suck.* close to 3 stars

100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective (Vertigo Comics) *Piano bar without a piano player. A private dick wrapped up like the Invisible Man. Stolen art with codes from one's past. A damaging echo.* between 2 1/2 & 3 stars

Justified: Season 1 Episode 5 *The cowboy's pa is an outlaw.* 3 stars

American Gothic: Resurrector *Going away presents for a ghost and a sacrifice to the devil.* close to 3 stars

Kung Fu: Nine Lives *"Find a cat or be a tramp all your life." "Dark and vain are the ways of lust, the poet said." or something of that nature...* 3 stars

"Master of the Flying Guillotine" *A bloody martial arts tournament, where every fighter has a unique gimmick or style, is interrupted by a badass villain using his flying guillotine to pull the heads off of every one armed boxer that he finds until he gets his revenge. He finds out that he's not as badass as the real one armed boxer. This flick had to have had a huge influence on both Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat.* 3 stars

Doctor Who: The Satan Pit *A claustrophobic, high stakes sci fi story similar to The Thing, Leviathan, and Alien.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Horror Express" (Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing) *It's about time, some cryptozoology monster goodness. Finding Bigfoot type nonsense has almost killed the fun in this fantasy genre. It helps that this movie is Hammer horror style and has Lovecraftian-dread overtones.* 3 stars

Gerhard's America: Gerhard at NASCAR *Gerhard finds he has a lot in common with effeminate racer Michael Waltrip.* close to 2 1/2 stars

------ TV Carnage:

*A Lot Of Men Collect Barbie Dolls: "It's a professional hobby, now." Nothing weird, at all here.* 2 stars

*A Woman's Guide To Guns and Hallucinating: Learn about your weapon, instead of fantasizing about it.* close to 2 stars

*Aids = Hump Day Poison!: The 80s were all about high risk behavior.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Child Actor Failures: Are you being rigid enough or in some cases too rigid with your little gold-mine?* close to 3 stars

*Damn Shame: It's a shame that white boy thugs get gunned down every day. Call America's Most Wanted or Yo! MTV Raps with any info on the possible killer.* 2 1/2 stars

---------------------------------------

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Big Trouble In Little China

*Joe Bob pokes fun at the culture of addiction.

We learn about Carter Wong, the martial arts expert who stars in the movie. Amazing credits to his kung fu game.

Preview for TNT's new classic "The Golden Child" starring Eddie Murphy

quirky KIA suv car commercial from 1998 featuring cliche gator hunting / swamp loving Cajuns who'd be the type in reality shows more than a decade later. It's funny here, sort of, but tiresome if you live in this era of bad reality tv "real folk" like this.

preview for Jacki Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx" and its American cable tv debut on TNT

a yuppy mom tries to stuff a pizza into her toaster, but doesn't have to anymore because some processed junk food company invented toaster pizza snacks. "White lady/mom problems"

Kim Cattral is gorgeous, in this movie, and not an old whore who'd make you swear off women like she would after her Sex in the City days

SNL's Weekend Update anchor Kevin Nealon sells out for a collect call "so 90s it hurts" advertisement. One good thing about cell phones is that these ads disappeared

Joe Bob's Drive In Totals for this flick: 57 dead bodies... One kidnapping... Four motor vehicle chases... One wheelchair chase... One White-Slavery Ring... Yellow-Slavery Ring... One Machine Gun Massacre... One Machete Battle... Multiple Blue Finger-Flame... One Zombie-fied Levitating 2,000-Year-Old Man With Really Bad Fingernails... Exploding Building...Exploding Temple... Knife To The Forehead... One Ocean of Chained Skeletons... One Palace Of Golden Buddhas... Poison Gas... Nine Kung Fu Scenes...

Racquelle Welch in One Million BC, another drive in classic, next week on Monstervision

Some Hollywood stunt-men cowboys beat the shit out of each other for a Pontiac "Montana" minivan. Sure, why not?

Soulful 70s singer-songwriter Aflac family insurance ad, family station wagon Tru Value helpful employee kidnapping ad, Home Depot helpful employees..., some bruthas turn a stranger's need for directions into a roadtrip down the road for some McDonalds.... 90s commercials tried to be really feel good, but come off very insipid

"Tired of Phony Psychics?" Generic graphics of lightning strikes and huge yellow background typed letters plus a doe eyed weirdo lady claiming to have certified psychics for her phone network.... "Guaranteed Authentic by the U.S. Govt." HAAAA.... wow! what a claim!

Joe Bob pines about how there aren't perfect women in the world, and how guys give up women over nail color, comparing it to the plot of the movie being about the search for a perfect, green eyed Chinese chick

Then, Joe Bob skewers the politically correct critics, of this movie, who said that Big Trouble re-enforced Asian stereotypes.

Kitschy style Miller Lite commercial where four old ladies try to contact the spirit of one lady's dead husband. He's a slab, of course, and comes back to life, possessing the body of one of her friends, raiding the fridge for beer and scratching his (her) ass. She's overjoyed.

Kellog's Breakfast Mates... A commercial that's basically saying, "Let corporate America continue to "raise" your children." It's convenient.

Joe Bob teaches us about Kurt Russell's ties to Elvis and Disney and John Carpenter

TNT updates its Monstervision website "once a week." Current people and websites, of the internet(s), update every second of the day. Waiting a week for something new is almost as painful as the information (nonsense) overload of right now.

Dennis Miller is in line at a hipster coffe shop complaining about the price of "a cup of Joe" and the price of collect calls. If he sounds like a cranky and out of touch old man here, wait til a decade later where he's rambling incoherently to his best pal Mr.Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

Two 90s alterna-chicks having a conversation: "One day we'll meet, marry, and have cyber sex with the man of our dreams online." Robert Englud cameo in Dee Snider's Strangeland

Joe Bob points out that there's a "not so incognito" Penthouse Pet in this flick

TNT Mail Girl Reno gets asked to how much it would take to "get nekkid" by Joe Bob, and then he reads an angry letter from an upset liberal who loves freedom so much that he wants to ban free speech that he doesn't like by calling it "hatred." Ha. Joe Bob made a joke about "killing liberals" or something and this guy got his feelings hurt. Boo hoo.

Joe Bob rips TNT a new asshole for taking an awful commercial break, featuring about 14 insipid 90s "feel good" commercials, during the EPIC kung fu finale. Being on TNT, and not too late in the night unlike TNT's 100% Weird, Monstervision suffered some really lame commercials. USA UP All Night usually had more lame B movies instead of good B movies, yet they featured a lot more entertaining and sleazy commercials compared to Monstervision Other, late night basic cable and UHF B movies had better commercials than TNT as well. Fucking TNT. So schmaltzy and sickening. You watch a weird, late night movie, you want weird late night commercials, and you want them not to interrupt the best part of the movie. You don't want a great kung fu scene stopped to have five minutes of sepia toned artsy cinematography of elderly couples slow dancing in the shadow of the Brooklyn bridge while romantic piano music plays and there's a warm feeling about life insurance or some crap.

Roll Credits.*

3 stars for Big Trouble (For fun and memorable characters, it's to the 80s what A New Hope was to the 70s) 3 stars for Joe Bob and 1 star for TNT's bullstuff

---------------------------------------------------------------------

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Caught In The Web, Staying Safe in Cyberspace: Surfin' with a cyber sleuth and stopping smut and sickos both online and in the real world. If any of this is actually real.* close to 3 stars

*Check It Out _ Acne Video: "Hip" teen talk show infomercial about bogus zits.* 2 1/2 stars

*Chef Keith _ Fake Chef Pranks Morning TV Shows: You can make one of those creepy smiling talking head news morning show hosts believe that "The average person eats around a pound and a half of feces a year." HA! Most of the feces comes from morning talks shows.* 3 stars

*Christian Rock Video Showdown: We're all a wiener slash loser with these bands that are a even more soft rock cross between Journey, Foreigner, Kenny Loggins, and a hairy butt.* close to 3 stars

*John and Johnny and Earrings: Homeshopping host is giddy about seashell earrings.* close to 2 stars

--------------------------------

Fargo: The Six Ungraspables *There are no saints in the animal kingdom, only breakfast... lunch.. and dinner.* 3 stars

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Burlington, Vermont *Home of laidback liberals and Lochness lizards.* 2 1/2 stars

Vanity Fair, Confidential: Mad About the Boys *Lou Pearlman loved to hear singing from voices that hadn't yet gone through puberty. He also loved hot air balloons and ponzi schemes. No surprise that the super-rich sponsor of a creepy cult of child entertainers was not-so-secretly a pig-man spawn of Satan himself.* 2 1/2 stars

X Files: Born Again *Mustache'd cop working Chinatown. He gets killed by some shady colleagues. Years later, he returns as a very gloomy little-girl with special powers and vengeance on her(his) mind.* close to 3 stars

The Prisoner: Checkmate *On a wing and a prayer and unfortunately an air of authority.* 3 stars

----- TV Carnage:

*Dr. Drew and MTV Got Cold Feet: Could be worse. Could be dead like Corey Haim and his girlfriend. Killed by Brigette Nielsen, Stallone and Flava Flav's ex.* close to 2 stars

*TV Carnage: Dixie Carter Death Trip: Designing women to be strangely obnoxious.* 2 stars

*Even His Scream Is Bad Acting: Bohunk (Dumb goodlooking American guy. Not the dictionary definition which insults someone from Europe.) slasher victim.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Give Head Responsibly: Consult your doctor before giving or receiving.* 2 1/2 stars

*God Gives A Second Chance To Anyone. It's In His Book: Especially to those with a Pat Boone singing style and a new book coming out about second chances.* close to 2 1/2 stars

-----------------------------------------

Hannibal: Sorbet *Hannibal has a stalker/fan/wannabe BFF who compares him to Michael Jackson. Meanwhile, Hannibal keeps recipes of people on their business cards.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Look Around You: Music (season 2) *The show's format has completely changed to an in studio info / variety presentation, and while it's no longer the mock science docu-series that it started out as, it's still silly and clever. Plus, it's longer at a half hour.* 2 1/2 stars

Game of Thrones: Season 3 Episode 9 *This show is good and shockingly heavy, as usual, but I watch it in a way that would more than frustrate diehard fans. I'm seasons behind where everyone else is, and I have no concern as to when I see the next chapter.* 3 stars

Shaw Brothers: Executioners from Shaolin *At the heart of this movie is a dysfunctional kung fu family. On the wedding night, the groom can't get the bride's legs open because her crane style is too strong. Mother teaches son crane style kung fu and they playfully use it even when she's trying to wash the family's clothes. Dad can't even sit down to a good meal, because son wants to test dad's tiger style kung fu.* 3 stars

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furederiko · 7 years

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9 MARVEL CHARACTERS I WANT TO SEE IN THE CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

Just spitballing for fun here!

To celebrate September 9th, here are 9 Marvel Heroes I would like to see making their debut in the next phase of Marvel Cinematic Universe. By MCU, that means for the movies... NOT for TV. I'm not saying because the TV side is... bad (even if I do lean towards that conclusion, it would be a subjective opinion), but I just don't think TV would be able to do justice with these characters due to various constraints (budget, VFX quality, etc).

It's already widely reported that the 2019 "UNTITLED Avengers" will serve as the culmination of MCU since 2008. That means, the door to welcome new characters and IPs would be wide open. So these are the names I would like to see getting the spotlight, and perhaps, assemble into a new set of Avengers. One might easily notice that the names I'm including here are characters from the animated "Avengers Assemble" series. That's actually... INTENTIONAL. One, because that means Marvel Studios obviously has the rights to use them (or at least partially, like the Spider-Man characters). And two, because I want this post to have a similar look and feel. But I'm NOT leaving behind other characters who have yet to show up in that series. That's why there's a special 'Bonus' section afterwards... (^^)v

Now that the explanation is out of the way, let's start right away! Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Agent Venom

Coincidentally, the first one is already a tricky situation. Eugene "Flash" Thompson is a Spider-Man character, so the rights to him is owned by SONY. That company is already working on a "Venom" movie that might not (or might?) be part of the MCU, with Tom Hardy as the lead. On the other hand, a modern-bully version of Flash has already debuted in the MCU via this year's "Spider-Man: Homecoming", as brought to life by Tony Revolori. Of course, the prospect of seeing a talented actor like Revolori becoming a headlining hero, is just too good to ignore. Mind you, it might take him a very long time (until after the high school characters graduate?) before arriving in a possible bittersweet situation (in the comics, Flash had to lose his legs first). But overall, Marvel Studios has already sown the seed for Agent Venom's debut. I can only hope this idea will be realized somewhere in the future...

Hercules

Odd choice, huh? But hear me out. We haven't had a great Hercules movie for a long time (my favorite was still Disney's animated-musical version, and it differed massively from the mythology). So why not leave it to Marvel Studios to do justice for the figure, and make a HUGE name out of him? The comic version of Hercules Panhellenios is a struggling, washed-out, unemployed hero, who spends his time slacking around and being a disappointment to others. True to his metaphorical title as a fierce male lion, huh? This situation and condition would carry massive potentials to explore in the movies. He can also take over Thor Odinson's position to expand the MCU towards more Greek-based mythological stories. Would you like to see Herc fighting Cerberus or Hydra (the monster, not the NAZI organization) in live action? I sure do. Good ol' Herc has seen a return to spotlight recently, with his own solo comic series. So what an excellent time to promote him for his own movie too! Since Chris Hemsworth and Pratt are already in the MCU (IMO, both are giving off a strong Hercules vibe!), perhaps Marvel Studios can hire... I don't know, Joe Manganiello as the lead actor?

Hyperion

Another mythological-esque hero! Unlike Hercules though, Marcus Milton has a completely different origin, being descendant of... the Eternals. Yes, the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie series have already introduced this powerful race, which means, the route to Hyperion's debut is more or less smooth sailing. Interestingly, Hyperion is well known as part of the superhero team "Squadron Supreme". That means, if ever Marvel Studios needs a 'replacement' for the Avengers, this group is a good candidate. Just like Herc, Hyperion has returned to the limelight with a new comic series lately, eventhough it was cancelled after a few volumes. I admit, being a copy/parody of a certain DC hero, the character doesn't really have deep potentials. But that's why I trust Marvel Studios to give him the push he needed! As for the actor, for some reason, I would love to see John Krasinski in the role. Dude was considered to be Captain America before, right? And he's not another Chris. LOL.

Inferno

We're back to another tricky business. Dante Pertuz is a relatively new character, a modern version of Human Torch that FOX doesn't own. LOL. He's introduced in the recent years with the NuHumans storyline, which exactly leads to THE tricky situation. Yes, he's an Inhuman, and his origin story is deeply connected to the Inhumans Royal Family (specifically Gorgon). We all know that Marvel TV had taken over the Inhumans IP and turn it into a TV series (complete with bad writing, bad design, bad reviews *smh*). I'm VERY concerned the division would also want to capitalize on Inferno to boost the show's appeal, and I personally don't think that's a wise decision. Visual-effect wise, Mark Kolpack has admitted that creating Robbie Reyes' Ghost Rider's flaming head and chains for the 4th season of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." was taxing and demanding. It's basically a movie-level VFX that required extra hours and patience, not something that can usually be rushed in a TV deadline. Now imagine doing that with Inferno, who emits flame from all over his body! But there's a bigger stake, here. You see, Dante's clearly a latino hero, and we haven't had one headlining an MCU movie until now. With his visual powers and relatable storyline (struggling with being Inhumans, a minority, rock star, and all), a movie would privilege Dante with the justice he deserve. I'm aware that highly likely Marvel Studios will be going with a cosmic Sam Alexander's Nova instead, and that's okay. But Inferno would be more current, if not more likeable choice.

Ka-Zar

Kevin Plunder came in to this list, with the same reason to Hercules. Because he's Marvel version of Tarzan! Hollywood has been trying to create a good Tarzan movie over and over again, and they're either an okay hit or a sad miss. As far as I know, none of them were ever able to please every audience, not even Disney's animated version. But Ka-Zar is different, because he carries more 'fantasy' than just trying to ape the King of the Jungle. The setting of his adventures, the "Savage Land" that's hidden deep in Antarctica, would be something magnificent to feature in the big screen. We've got Asgard, Kamar-Taj, Wakanda, why not add Savage Land too! Don't forget Zabu, his saber-toothed best friend, which would require massive CGI work. Suffice to say, the things I'm reading and hearing about Ka-Zar only leads to one conclusion: I want to see him in a live action movie! Now, who can portray him? Hmmm... a natural blond Brit like Charlie Hunnam, perhaps?

Ms. Marvel

All concerns I had for Dante, goes for Kamala Khan as well. Being a fellow Inhumans, there's been a rampant rumor recently that she'll be getting a TV series (supposedly the one John Ridley is working on). For me, that's a HUUUGE NOOOO. And due to THREE major reasons. ONE, similar to Inferno, TV budget won't be able to handle the VFX required to showcase her Inhuman ability with the right look and feel. Look no further than that underwhelming looking "Inhumans" series as example! Would you like to see an iconic figure like Kamala being reduced to a 'disaster' with the excuse of making her 'grounded'? You know, like what Marvel TV have already done to Medusa? I certainly DON'T. Kamala is basically the modern version of Mr. Fantastic, and we all know that even FOX have tried to do Reed Richards right in the movies several times, but still couldn't perfectly nail it. Downgrading this situation to a TV level would only make it worse. TWO, Kamala is a genuinely likeable and well-beloved character that easily captures the heart and attention of many readers throughout the world. If the 60s-90s had Peter Parker, Kamala's the youth representative for the modern world. Hip, cool, and current (being a social media freak and all), but also kind and caring... eventhough she's a triple-decker minority (Female, South Asian heritage, and Moslem) living in a racist country. Which leads me to the final reason. THREE, her story will have a MUCH BIGGER impact to the world as a movie. Releasing a Marvel Studios movie with her as the lead in an international market (including countries with Moslem as majority), would not only bank a great amount of money, but also sends the right messages: one, unlike its current government, Hollywood is NOT racist; two, that everyone can be a hero, regardless of their gender, race, and religion! Relegating a character this HUGE to a small-scoped TV series that not everyone can gain access to, would be a massive disservice. Kamala is the hero the world currently needs, so please don't undermine her into disappointments.

She-Hulk

Another tricky situation, though in this case, due to the confusing copyrights. Actor Mark Ruffalo has repeatedly said, that a Hulk solo movie won't be coming along the road because Universal has the distribution rights. What about his super-powered cousin, Jennifer Walters? It's unclear, but I can only assume that she has the same legal limitation. Thankfully, it also doesn't mean that she can't be used in a Marvel Studios movies. She just need to be included as part of an ensemble, that's all. The great thing about Jen, is that she's a lawyer and later a judge. Not only she's strong physically, but also academically. Won't that be a strong role model for young women and girls all around the world? We haven't really had a law angle in the superhero movies until now, with Daredevil occupying the Netflix universe. So bringing Jen into the light would be fresh and promising. As for who should play him, I don't have a particular choice, but someone with Award prestige like Emily Blunt, Charlize Theron, and/or Jennifer Lawrence would be a great get...

Songbird

Former villain turned Avengers? Yep, that premise alone would make a great story. Melissa Gold started off as a troubled woman, with broken family and harsh situation. Giving in to the world of crime (known as Screaming Mimi) was clearly her way to stay alive. Eventually she stumbled into the road of heroism with the Songbird moniker, and ended up becoming a full-time member of the Avengers. Just like the other characters I've included here, Melissa would be a great role model, especially for troubled teenagers. Her path of redemption proves that anyone, regardless of their past and issues, can be a hero too. An inspiring message that Marvel Studios need to share to the world. She doesn't sell enough as a solo movie? Well, then debuting her as part of the "Thunderbolts" would be equally okay for me. All the ingredients are already in the MCU anyway (Thunderbolt Ross, Helmut Zemo?). As for the actress, for some reason, I want to see Anna Kendrick in this role. Yeah, basically I just want to see her in a Marvel Studios movie, but I believe she would really bring justice to the gorgeous-designed Songbird.

White Tiger

We've already gotten an African "Black Panther", now it's time for a hispanic White Tiger! Her powers come from the mystical side, and since "Doctor Strange" has opened up the gateway to supernatural, we can have more heroes with this kind of origin story! I'm personally going with Ava Ayala, and not Angela del Toro, eventhough either of them would be wonderful. Why White Tiger? Same reason to Dante, and in a way, Kamala. Sure, the MCU have included numerous Latino actors who either got lost in the background (Jonathan Pangborn?), or turned out to be a scene stealer (looking at you Luis!!!), but we haven't really had a major hispanic hero in the MCU until now. More importantly, a female one! Debuting Ava in the MCU would also, once again, sends off a great message. The US government have been really discriminative about immigrants lately, including the hispanics. Putting Ava in the spotlight would remind everyone that South Americans CAN be heroes, and not criminals like what they're being wrongfully accused for. We truly need characters like this right away! As for who should play her, I'm currently setting my eyes on Gina Rodriquez of the hit series "Jane the Virgin".

Honorable Ment... SPECIAL ADDITIONS

The next characters are those who (as far as my memory serves) haven't made their debut in the "Avengers Assemble" series. So they sort of... didn't fulfill the basic requirement for my initial list. But it'd be unfair leaving them behind like that, right? That's why they are special 'Bonus' additions. Without further ado, in alphabetical order:

Brother Voodoo

For the record, I'm not being racist by sidelining the only black character to this section. The reason I put him here, is because his debut in the MCU movies is pretty much confirmed. Daniel Drumm, big brother to Jericho Drumm, has already made his appearance in "Doctor Strange" as the original protector of New York Sanctum Santorum. And director Scott Derrickson has already hinted that his death would lead to consequences, including the arrival of Jericho. Debuting Jericho as a sort of sidekick to Stephen Strange would be nice, but it would be much better if he gets his own movie too. Yes, there's an issue regarding his name, because using Voodoo might... well, attract criticsm. But titles can be tweaked, right? Considering Jericho ends up becoming a Sorcerer Supreme too, I believe he'll be perfect as the next black hero to headline his own movie.

Shang-Chi

I've already repeatedly mentioned that Marvel Studios NEED a major hero representing minorities, and this is another great candidate. Marvel Studios have brought several prominent Asian characters into the MCU, like Wong, Mantis (eventhough she's an alien), and Helen Cho. Yet they all share similar characteristic: they are all supporting cast. If Marvel Studios want to play it 'safe' and headline an East Asian lead character, then Shang-Chi is the go-to-guy. Nope, I'm not undermining him, but just pointing out how easy he would appeal to the audience. Shang-Chi is in a way, Marvel Comics' response to Bruce Lee. We all know that the world LOVES some Bruce Lee. And Shang is more than just a Bruce Lee copy, he's also a master of espionage who's determined to take down his own father's criminal empire. Pretty much a solid recipe for a James Bond-styled wuxia blockbuster hit, am I right! "Doctor Strange" has teased the use of martial arts to support magic, a hero like Shang would put it upfront as the star of the party. Marvel TV might have taken the stamp on Iron Fist (with mixed response), so Shang is the opportunity for Marvel Studios to do it RIGHT! Jon Woo, Ang Lee, or Jacky Chan can direct this, and as for the actor, Godfrey Gao is my top pick. But Ludi Lin, Philip Ng (star of the fictional Bruce Lee biopic "Birth of the Dragon"), or even Yoshi Sudarso (who is Chinese-Indonesian) would be fantastic nonetheless.

Spider-Woman

The last tricky affair of the day! Jessica Drew is called Spider-Woman, but she uses the 'Spider' moniker by name only, and unrelated to Spider-Man. That's why until now, it's currently unclear whether her movie rights is owned by SONY or not. She's actually one of the superheroine I've been itching to see in the MCU, but admittedly, these questions surrounding her place always put me on a weird crossroad. Drew is connected to Hydra, the High Evolutionary, and has always been a full-blown Avengers. And all of those screams MCU. She's also the best friend of Carol Danvers, so I honestly want to see her show up in "Captain Marvel". Her comic origin story sort of fits with "Captain Marvel" 90s setting too. Have Jessica encounter Carol when she was a child, then Jessica was put into stasis for years, only to wake up as a superpowered woman in the present day. And then she meets Carol again, and team up as the new Avengers. All's well ends well! I personally want to see Tatiana Maslany of the famous "Orphan Black" for this character, but Marvel Studios can always cast an Asian actress (like Constance Wu or Celina Jade) due to Drew's ambiguous background.

Young Avengers

This one initially started off with just William "Billy" Kaplan and partner Theodore "Teddy" Altman. A sweet pairing more famously known as Wiccan and Hulkling. My way of thinking was, it'd be rude and unfair to name just one of them, right? If Marvel Studios wants to go ahead and feature an LGBT representation, these guys are the one they should use. Is it possible? There's a hint that we'll be seeing Vision and Wanda Maximoff's relationship evolve in "Avengers: Infinity War". Perhaps somehow they end up bending reality, and Billy is magically conceived? Meanwhile, "Captain Marvel" confirmed that the alien race Skrull CAN be used in the MCU, so a half Kree-Skrull (his biological father is the original/male Captain Marvel) like Teddy is more than just possible. Basically, that movie is the only gateway needed for his debut in the MCU.

But then I began thinking. Why am I leaving behind Billy's twin brother Thomas "Tommy" Shepherd? Poor Pietro Maximoff was killed off in just one movie, why am I sidelining another Speed-ster? That's NOT right. Then the more I think of it, the bigger the scope gets. We have a Hawkeye and Ant-Man who are both fathers in the MCU. Why not include their protege/child? Katherine "Kate" Bishop might not be Clint Barton's daughter, but the two shared a special connection that would be great to depict on the big screen. And then there's Cassandra "Cassie" Lang who looks up to her father Scott, and aspires to be a size-shifting heroine of her own. Cassie has already debuted in the MCU as played by Abby Ryder Fortson, why not promote her into a hero too? And how could I miss out the lesbian latina America Chavez? Fitting in comfortably to all the diversity talk I've stated above, America is not only female, latina, she's also an LGBT representative. Another triple-decker like Kamala. JACKPOT!

So yeah, that's how I ended up with Young Avengers instead. If Marvel TV has "The Runaways", then Marvel Studios can have these equally (if not more prospective) young heroes! If we assume that we will no longer see the Avengers following the 2019 movie, then introducing the Young Avengers would be the most logical continuation. This movie doesn't even to take place in the present time, but a bit further in the future, or even in an alternate reality. That's the function of Reality Stone and Multi-verse, right? This team represents youth, fun, and diversity, sending all the right messages to the world. And at the same, enabling older actors like Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch and others to serve briefly as mentor figures. There's also one other reason why this special team ends up being the last entry on this post (which is unintentional, to be honest): because I REALLY want them to show up in the MCU! \(*v*)/

So there you have it, the 9 (plus 4+) Marvel Heroes I want to see coming to the big screen. In the end though, this is nothing more than a personal opinion. It's obviously a very subjective thinkpiece, so anyone else might not have the same idea (if you do have your take, then do post them, I'd gladly read it!). I do however, hope that someone, anyone from Marvel Studios would somehow stumble upon this, read it, and put these names into considerations. I sincerely feel they will bring something NEW to the MCU, while continue conveying message of hope, inspiration, kindness, and good. After all, that's what Marvel Studios movies are for, right? Thanks for reading... enjoy your September 9th! Even if it might be just a regular day for most of us... XD

#Just for Fun #movie #random #marvel #Marvel Studios

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Who is She-Hulk? A Guide to Marvel's Next TV Star

https://ift.tt/2Zx6AAW

Avengers: Endgame gave us a Hulk in the laboratory. Now Disney+ will be giving us a She-Hulk in the courtroom.

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One of the better parts of Avengers: Endgame was the fact that Professor Hulk was a viable character, able to exist in normal scenes without sticking out like a sore thumb. Once they had that tech figured out, it was only a matter of time before She-Hulk became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And now, here we are, with the announcement of She-Hulk getting her own Disney+ show!

She-Hulk is high on the list of “top Marvel characters to not yet show up in the MCU,” especially now that both the X-Men and Fantastic Four are inevitable arrivals. Since her introduction in 1980, she’s been a major fixture in Marvel and a fresh enough take on an existing property that she rarely feels redundant when standing next to her brutish cousin.

So who is She-Hulk? Let’s take a look ...

THE ORIGINAL SERIES

The funny thing about She-Hulk’s creation was that she was made for the sake of legal strategy. The Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk TV show was a massive hit and Marvel came to a dire realization. Since it was an easy trope to give a popular male character a female counterpart (ie. the Bionic Woman), there was strong potential that the TV show would introduce a female version of the Hulk. But if that happened then the character would belong to the TV show! It’s like why Skeeter from Muppet Babies never shows up in actual Muppets stuff.

So Stan Lee went, “John Buscema! Get over here! We’re making a She-Hulk comic!” Then he let David Anthony Kraft and Mike Vosburg take care of the rest of the 25-issue run.

Funny enough, with Savage She-Hulk #1 existing to counter the TV show, the very first narration box even calls attention to the show via making a joke about whether Banner’s first name is David or Bruce.

read more - Eternals: Who is Marvel's Black Knight?

Jennifer Walters starts out as a mild-mannered lawyer until the day her cousin Bruce Banner shows up because he needs someone to confide in about his whole Hulk situation. They’re hanging out for a good 10 minutes before a criminal involved in one of Jen’s cases shows up and shoots her. In order to save Jen, Bruce MacGyvers together a blood transfusion and then splits. Jen soon discovers that she can transform into a giant, jacked, green woman, and so we have She-Hulk.

It’s your usual Bronze Age fare after that. She does double-life hero stuff because She-Hulk gets blamed for tragedies. The supporting cast is boring. The villains are forgettable (outside of a half-man/half-elephant).

Somewhere, it’s established that Hulk isn’t a rage monster simply because of the gamma radiation, but because Banner spent so much of his life holding down his anger. She-Hulk plays on that by showing that instead of being driven by fury, her second form is based on Jen’s lack of confidence. She-Hulk is strong in all the ways Jen Walters could never bring herself to be.

THE FANTASTIC HULK

With her series done, She-Hulk went on to become a member of the Avengers. She remained a regular part of the team up until Brian Michael Bendis’ mid-00s reinvention of the team. What’s interesting is that she was actually part of two major teams at the same time for a period.

read more: The History of Moon Knight

Unfortunately, the second half of the series doesn’t work out as well. Mainly because Dan Slott goes into full “continuity cop” mode and has to bring any changes to the status quo from other Marvel writers back to earth, including his own interesting developments. Like there was an X-Men story where She-Hulk and Juggernaut had a brief fling. Rather than ignore or build on that, there’s a whole reveal that it was a She-Hulk from another dimension who did the deed with the unstoppable one.

Peter David took over writing duties after Slott left and while it didn’t last long, it wasn’t half bad.

SHE-HULKAMANIA

There was a time when there were SO MANY Hulk-based characters running around at the same time. Rick Jones (A-Bomb), General Ross (Red Hulk), Betty Ross (Red She-Hulk), Hulk’s barbarian space son (Skaar), Hulk’s alternate future daughter (Lyra), and not to mention all of Hulk’s space gladiator buddies who had settled on Earth. Jen was...there.

Even though she didn’t leave much of a lasting impression, Lyra starred in her own miniseries, All-New Savage She-Hulk, and Jen acted as a mentor and a supporting character. So Lyra’s deal? Okay, deep breath.

read more: Complete Schedule of Upcoming MCU Phase 4 Marvel Movies

In an alternate future, men and women are barbarians going through a literal gender war. The amazon warrior Thundra has had a few run-ins with the Hulk via time-travel and decided to make the strongest warrior ever via getting impregnated by him. In a non-sexual way. Really. As a teenager, Lyra the She-Hulk was ostracized by her peers for being partially created by a dude, but she could kick ass and that was what was important. She went back to the present to sleep with and/or kill Norman Osborn and hooked up with Jen along the way.

Anyway, Lyra’s deal is that anger is her weakness. If she gets mad, she gets weaker.

SHAKEN FOUNDATION

So Jonathan Hickman wrote Fantastic Four and FF (Future Foundation) concurrently and brought huge interest into that side of Marvel for a bit. A couple years later, Hickman wrote the 2015 version of Secret Wars, which was partially Marvel’s way of getting rid of Fantastic Four/FF for a while because of movie rights bullshit. In the in-between, Matt Fraction wrote the two titles.

His Fantastic Four was more or less forgettable, except for a scene where a rightfully pissed Human Torch ranted at Reed and Sue for constantly patronizing him. God, that part was so good.

read more - The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Who is John Walker?

FF was something very different. Fraction teamed with Mike Allred and had a team of She-Hulk, Ant-Man, Medusa, and a pop-star named Darla who was wearing a robot Thing costume. The whole thing was easily the better series of the two, was quirky beyond belief, and only now do I realize that her show needs a group of super-smart underground mole creatures announcing that they must protect “The Jen” at all costs.

LAWYERS WRITING LAWYERS

There was a time when Charles Soule wrote like 99% of comics. He might be writing this article for all I know. I’ll have to check the byline later to be sure it’s me. Not only is Soule incredibly prolific, but he’s also a practicing lawyer. Kind of the perfect choice for She-Hulk, right?

Javier Pulido is on art and it’s something you either love or hate. He has some really cool layouts, but Jen’s wonky eyes might take you out of the book too often.

Anyway, it’s more emphasis on She-Hulk’s lawyer stuff, including a courtroom showdown with fellow super-lawyer Daredevil. As much of a main event as that is, the highlight to me is She-Hulk’s time assisting Kristoff, Dr. Doom’s adopted son who is so casual about the utter weirdness of his father’s machinations.

THE FAMILY BANNER

You know how I have been gushing about all the fun runs with She-Hulk? Lately, she’s been...not so sunny. The story Civil War II happened, which not only started with She-Hulk getting beaten within an inch of her life by Thanos, but later on, Hawkeye killed Bruce Banner. Don’t worry, Bruce got better thanks to very bizarre comic book reasons, but for a time, Jen had to deal with some nasty trauma.

It was here that they brought back a concept from the early 90s run: She-Hulk has a gray form that makes her rage-driven and more like Bruce. Her new series was titled Hulk because of her daily struggle with not turning into the beast and ruining everything. Mariko Tamaki’s run on the book is tense and takes its time getting to the monster at the end of the book, but is still not as dark as the pitch would initially have you believe. It’s not about living with trauma, but living through trauma and finding the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s fine for what it is, but I’m hoping it’s not the tone of the Disney+ show. At least MCU Thanos isn’t around to clobber her.

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and wonders if Tim Blake Nelson will finally return for the She-Hulk show. Read more of his articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Aug 28, 2019

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gokinjeespot · 4 years

Text

off the rack #1304

Monday, March 9, 2020

I want to thank my partner Chris for another successful Capital Comic Book Con at the Delta Hotel in downtown Ottawa yesterday. All of his hard work pricing and preparing our stock and setting up our booth paid off. I am glad that I get a day to recover as the old muscles are aching today. I saw many old friends and customers which made for a fun social event as well. There's a full moon out tonight so get out there and give a howl. Then come back inside and wash your hands.

Daredevil #19 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Marco Checchetto (art) Mattia Iacono (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). A gang of super villains paid by the Stromwyns is destroying Hell's Kitchen. Can Daredevil save his home? There's a lot of destruction and the citizens try to defend themselves but it doesn't look good. I like the wild card showing up. I wonder if they will help or hurt?

Lois Lane #9 - Greg Rucka (writer) Mike Perkins (art) Andy Troy (colours) Simon Bowland (letters). Lois and Renee need to find the assassin Kiss of Death and they get some help from a friend. Batman's appearance was a hoot. This story has been great so far. You should also be watching Greg's TV show Stumptown. Cobie Smulders is killing it as Dex.

Doctor Strange #6 - Mark Waid (writer) Kev Walker (art) Java Tartaglia & Antonio Fabela (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Someone has stolen Stephen's magical artefacts and could be mass producing them for evil purposes. He has to team up with Doctor Druid to stop that from happening. This new story is spellbinding.

Superman: Villains #1 - Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction & Jody Houser (writers) Art, colours and letters done by a bullpen full of others. This $5.99 US one-shot is a muddled mess. It confused me right out of the gate when Superman visits his parents on the farm. Ma and Pa Kent are there. I thought Pa died. Then Superman tells Pa that some Batman tech is going to keep them safe like it does for the Batcave. That was four pages of WTF for me. So that segues into a scene with Lois, Clark, Perry and the new owner of the Daily Planet, Marisol Leone. We find out later that Ms. Leone is the head of some sort of Mafia. Then there's two pages of Lex Luthor and a laughing answering machine message that made me think it was the Joker calling to mock the bald baddie. I can go on and on, like why Bizarro? I hate Bizarro. Also, what is up with Supergirl? Is she still infected from Year of the Villain? All the different art styles didn't help either. This did not make me want to read more DC comics.

Black Cat #10 - Jed MacKay (writer) Kris Anka (art) Brian Reber (colours) Ferran Delgado (letters). It's a fun-filled, action-packed team-up with Wolverine in Madripoor. How do you like them hyphens?

Savage Avengers #11 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Butch Guice (art) Alex Guimaraes (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Doctor Strange's astral form observes the origin of the evil wizard Kulan Gath. It's this story that reveals the way to finally kill the sorcerer. But first, he and Elektra must find Conan. This was my favourite issue of the run so far.

Conan: Battle for the Serpent Crown #2 - Saladin Ahmed (writer) Luke Ross (art) Nolan Woodard (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). I love these outrageously improbable adventures. Conan chases the Black Cat to get a ring back. This issue takes place in Las Vegas so it's a good chance for the Scarlet Spider to make a guest appearance. Conan does retrieve the ring but how he does made me go "huh?". I really got a chuckle when I saw where Conan and Nyla are zapped to. I'm sure this will cross over with Savage Avengers at some point.

Strange Academy #1 - Skottie Young (writer) Humberto Ramos (art) Edgar Delgado (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I expected a fun debut from Skottie Young and he delivers. We meet a lot of kids and a lot of teachers in this new magical school of magic. This reminded me of Avengers Academy and I think I'll like this new crop of young magicians.

Batman #90 - James Tynion IV (writer) Jorge Jimenez (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). Catwoman has a secret that will destroy Batman's love for her and this flashback story tells us what it is. It was disappointing that I guessed what it was before the big reveal on the last page. This new villain, the Designer is kind of interesting and I want to see if Mr. D succeeds in his goal.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man #16 - Saladin Ahmed (writer) Cory Smith (pencils) Victor Olazaba (inks) David Curiel (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). There are two stories this issue. The first has Miles babysitting his little sister and you just know that things are going to get hairy. Then Uncle Aaron walks into a trap laid by his new boss Ultimatum. What happens next doesn't bode well for Miles. This is another book that I'm thinking of benching. My fondness for the character is waning but I do still like the art.

Marauders #9 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Matteo Lolli (art) Edgar Delgado (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This issue has Emma and Bishop dealing with the bad guys. It's really cool how Emma can mess with minds.

Dryad #1 - Kurtis J. Wiebe (writer) Justin Osterling (art) Jim Campbell (letters). This new fantasy story is about Morgan and Yale and their two teenage offspring Griffon and Rana. There are big swords and monsters and a mysterious ancient race. The mixed race marriage reminded me of Saga. Morgan is an elf and Yale is human. The kids go exploring and open a door leading to a peck of trouble. The characters didn't grab me and this issue didn't spark enough interest in me to want to read the next issue. You might like this if you enjoy books like Rat Queens.

Strange Adventures #1 - Tom King (writer) Mitch Gerads & Evan "Doc" Shaner (art) Clayton Cowles (letters). Adam Strange is back on the racks in this 12 issue maxi that has him being framed for murder. When Batman passes up the case he's got to go with another hero to clear his name. I really liked how Alanna was handled and that's why I will read the next issue.

2020 Rescue #1 - Dana Schwartz (writer) Jacen Burrows (art) Scott Hanna (inks pages 17, 19, 20) Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I know from reading Avengers that Tony is alive and well trapped in the past but Pepper Potts thinks he's dead. This story has Pepper trying to find a way to clone Tony using his biological parents' DNA. I picked this off the rack because of Jacen Burrows's art but the writing wasn't even half as good as the old Ironheart used to be so I won't be reading any more.

Spider-Man Noir #1 - Margaret Stohl (writer) Juan Ferreyra (art) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). This is Peter Parker as Sam Spade, the Shadow and Spider-Man all rolled into one circa 1939. The web-shooters and 45s are jarring to me. Anyways, the art is suitably dark and gorgeous and the murder mystery will have Peter globe trotting to find the killer. If you like hard boiled crime this is the 5-issue mini for you.

Doctor Doom #6 - Christopher Cantwell (writer) Salvador Larroca (art) Guru-eFX (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This is like a Bing Crosby and Bob Hope "Road to Terlingua, Texas" movie starring Doctor Doom and Kang. Doom is trying to find a way to keep a black hole from destroying the earth and Kang is just tagging along for giggles. Doom does get what he's after, rids himself of the annoying Kang and figures out how to save the earth. Now he's heading back home with the device and I want to see how he uses it.

Marvel #1 - this $4.99 US 6-issue mini is for all those Marvel Maniacs pining for stories from the days of yore. Alex Ross curates this anthology of new stories that read like reprints from the sixties. The two stories this issue are:

"Spider-Man: Make My Day" by Sajan Saini (writer) Frank Espinosa (art) & VC's Clayton Cowles (letters) features a fight with Rhino and an argument with Mary Jane.

"The Boy…and the Brute" by Kurt Busiek (writer) Steve Rude (art) Steven Legge (colours) & Steve Rude (letters) features Rick Jones, the Hulk and the Avengers.

These are nice little vignettes and are interesting for the creators involved. They're fun to read and that's what comic books are all about.

The Flash #750 - It's been a while since I've read a Flash comic so I thought I'd catch up by snagging this $7.99 US anniversary issue off the racks. There are 6 stories inside featuring a bunch of Flashes but mostly concentrating on Barry Allen. Jay the Golden Age Flash and Wally West are here too. There is also a lot of hopping around in time, dimensions and universes that left my head reeling. It looks like future issues of the Flash are going to speed through many divergent plots and I don't want to work that hard to keep track of everything. This issue did not make me want to return to the Flash fold.

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eddycurrents · 6 years

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For the week of 1 October 2018

You can read a full review of the excellent first issue of Rainbow Brite here.

Quick Bits:

A Walk Through Hell #5 concludes the first arc, showing us what happened to the other agent in the warehouse, and giving a bit of closure to what happened in Carnahan investigation. This is some of the darkest, creepiest stuff I’ve seen from Garth Ennis and he’s got plenty of good horror out there. Perfectly brought to life by Goran Sudžuka and Ive Svorcina.

| Published by AfterShock

Asgardians of the Galaxy #2 is more entertaining cosmic fare, reminding me a bit of some of the bizarre cosmic quests Marvel used to publish back in the 80s and 90s. Particularly some old Silver Surfer and Warlock & The Infinity Watch. It’s hard to qualify that feeling, but it’s welcome in the story. The artwork from Matteo Lolli and Federico Blee continues to be top notch.

| Published by Marvel

Batman/The Maxx: Arkham Dreams #1 is weird, but what else would you expect from The Maxx? Beautiful art here from Sam Kieth, with a softer, almost watercolour like colour style from Ronda Pattison.

| Published by IDW & DC Comics

Battlestar Galactica (Classic) #0 is a free preview of the next volume of the series from John Jackson Miller, Daniel HDR, Natalia Marques, and Taylor Esposito. I’ve like quite a bit of Miller’s Star Wars work, and despite not particularly caring for the original BSG, this isn’t bad. The artwork from HDR and Marques is very nice, both in terms of the likenesses and in the level of detail that the pair are putting into the ships and starfields.

| Published by Dynamite

Blackbird #1 is off to a good start, giving us a mix of magic and kind of a more grounded coming of age story. The artwork is a huge draw, with Jen Bartel, Paul Reinwand, and Nayoung Wilson delivering something that feels a bit like Kris Anka’s work in Runaways and Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson’s in The Wicked + The Divine. Somewhere between reality and imagination.

| Published by Image

Champions #25 kicks off a trip to Weirdworld for the team as they search for where Man-Thing carried off Sam and Nadia, allowing Jim Zub to play around in his fantasy wheelhouse, and giving Sean Izaakse and Max Dunbar to show off some really nice art and designs. The shift into fantasy is really well done, adapting the Champions into the setting through the method of transit there, rather than the more typical straight forward delivery. It gives an interesting counterpoint to the earlier Deadpool #4 and this week’s Weapon H #8 in their own use of Weirdworld.

| Published by Marvel

Dead Rabbit #1 is probably the best crime series debut I’ve read since Hot Lunch Special #1, and this is really damn good. Gerry Duggan and John McCrea create a very compelling lead in Martin Dobbs, the former Dead Rabbit, a retired masked thief now working at a Walmart analogue. McCrea, with colours from Mike Spicer, employs a more restrained form of his usual exaggerated style here and it is gorgeous, fitting the dark reality and gravity of the story.

| Published by Image

Death of the Inhumans #4 has a huge revelation that somehow makes everything worse. Yes, worse than killing Lockjaw. Donny Cates, Ariel Olivetti, Jordie Bellaire, and Clayton Cowles continue the blows coming, even as the Inhuman royal family and Beta Ray Bill attempt to get a modicum of retribution against Vox and the Kree.

| Published by Marvel

Death Orb #1 is off to an interesting start, laying heavy into the post-apocalyptic feel of things like Mad Max and Akira, with a sword of Damocles hanging high above the remaining people’s heads. It’s a familiar world that Ryan Ferrier and Alejandro Aragon have created here, but it’s compelling, making me wonder what more is there for the characters.

| Published by Dark Horse

Deathstroke #36 kicks off the “Arkham” arc. This is the first issue of this volume of Deathstroke I’ve read, but it flows really well for a new reader, even if you only have a passing knowledge of the various villains in Arkham Asylum. It reads very much in Priest’s style, with scenes broken down by title cards, sections working almost as discrete vignettes at times, and a nice amount of humour thrown in for god measure. Great art from Ed Benes, Fernando Pasarin, Richard Friend, Jason Paz, Wade von Grawbadger, and Jeromy Cox. Although the requisite backstory is provided in text, I’m definitely tempted to go back and read the rest of the series to see what I’ve missed.

| Published by DC Comics

Euthanauts #3 is another transcendental experience from Tini Howard, Nick Robles, Eva De La Cruz, and Neil Uyetake. The artwork from Robles and De La Cruz is incredible, with amazing layouts, panel transitions, and character designs that just pull you into the story that the entire creative team is telling.

| Published by IDW / Black Crown

Giant Days #43 continues the very weird Christmas-themed issues surrounding the Winter Village. Weird in that it’s strange to be reading about Christmas in October, but it’s still chock full of the humour and adroit depiction of university life that the series usually is.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

House Amok #2 is a solid follow-up to what has been one of the best first issues this year. Christopher Sebela, Shawn McManus, Lee Loughridge, and Aditya Bidikar have something here that is incredibly different and very compelling for everything else published right now. This issue relays the family’s descent into madness and it’s a fascinating look at how everything can go wrong. Like a cult in microcosm.

| Published by IDW / Black Crown

Iron Fist #1 is the third of Marvel’s new double-sized digital original ongoing series to be released. Like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage before it, this is very good. Somewhat surprisingly, this one’s a horror story. Clay McLeod Chapman, Guillermo Sanna, Lee Loughridge, and Travis Lanham tap into some Chinese folklore for the antagonist and set up an interesting quandary that borrows elements from Idle Hands and Ash vs. The Army of Darkness.

| Published by Marvel

Jook Joint #1 is a very dark book, tapping into themes of sexual assault, domestic abuse, and horrific, but likely justified, retribution. Understandably, some will find this first issue difficult, not just for the violence, but for the subject matter, but I think presentations of this kind of horror, bringing a mirror up to our darker natures, is necessary and important to tell. Tee Franklin, Alitha E. Martinez, Shari Chankhamma, and Taylor Esposito have something interesting here.

| Published by Image

The Last Siege #5 is a bit of turning point for the series, and quite possibly the best issue to date in a series of best issues. The tone and presentation changes as our stranger gets a name, and a backstory, and it’s very well told. Landry Q. Walker, Justin Greenwood, Brad Simpson, and Patrick Brosseau really step up this issue and I’d highly recommend it even if you’ve not been reading since the beginning.

| Published by Image

The Lollipop Kids #1 is one of the most beautiful books on the stands this week, with absolutely beautiful artwork from Diego Yapur and DC Alonso. The colour work and depth to the characters is just stunning.

| Published by AfterShock

The Lone Ranger #1 begins an interesting story here of land rights and the introduction of gentrification and eminent domain in Texas. Exactly the kind of thing that you’d expect from Mark Russell. There’s still a great deal of action, though, ably delivered from Bob Q, who’s proving here that he’s just as adept at the old American West as he is at WWII England.

| Published by Dynamite

Paradiso #8 brings the “Dark Dwellers” arc to a close, even though it sets up much more for the next arc with a particularly harrowing cliffhanger. I love how Ram V and Devmalya Pramanik are telling this story, with ample routes for failure, deception, and characters taking wrong turns. This world isn’t happy, is incredibly flawed, and it shines through in the nuanced storytelling.

| Published by Image

Redlands #7 returns after more than half a year and it was well worth the wait. The opening to this next arc continues the plot threads that have been established and points to something new with the arrival of the sisters’ father. Jordie Bellaire, Vanesa Del Rey, and Clayton Cowles drop us right back into the deep end of this layered and compelling horror.

| Published by Image

Sparrowhawk #1 is great. It’s a new fantasy in the vein of Alice in Wonderland, but with faeries and a much darker tone, from Delilah S. Dawson, Matias Basla, and Jim Campbell. I love the artwork from Matias Basla, who has a style not dissimilar to Eduardo Risso and Matías Bergara, and it works so incredibly well for dark fantasy.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Spook House 2 #1 is a welcome return, delivering up a new limited series chock full of off-beat, irreverent, and humorous mostly all ages horror stories, just in time for Halloween. This first issue offers four; a tale each from Steve Mannion and Eric Powell, each handling full creative duties themselves, then a go-kart satire of Stephen King’s Christine, by Powell, Jake Smith, and Warren Montgomery, and a take on Swamp Thing dedicated to the memory of Bernie Wrightson and Len Wein, from Powell, Kyle Hotz, and Montgomery. This last one is probably the best of the book and nicely captures the tone and feel of a muck-encrusted monster, with great art from Hotz and Montgomery.

| Published by Albatross Funnybooks

The Superior Octopus #1 is the last stop on the ride before Spider-Geddon proper begins and also serves as a bit of a preview of the forthcoming resurrected Superior Spider-Man series from this same team of Christos Gage and Mike Hawthorne (with Wade von Grawbadger, Jordie Bellaire, and Clayton Cowles - though I don’t know if they’ll also be on that book). It’s good. The art from Hawthorne, von Grawbadger, and Bellaire is great as expected and Gage has the voice of Octavius down pat.

| Published by Marvel

These Savage Shores #1 is the third brilliant debut from Vault in these past two weeks, and is quite possibly the best first issue of a series this year. This comic is brilliant, in form, style, structure, and execution. Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vittorio Astone, and Aditya Bidikar don’t just knock this one out of the park, it’s a hit gone from the stratosphere. Most of this team collaborated before on Ruin of Thieves to tell a wonderful story there, with Astone the newcomer on colours, and the result is an excellent creative team to give seamless storytelling.

This is horror, mixed with adventure, playing with the vampire, Indian folktales, colonial expansionism into India, and more coming together into one brilliant package. The fact that it’s mostly told through an epistolary format is the perfect homage to Dracula, but it also gives us an incredible moment later that helps turn those conventions on their ear. And the art is absolutely gorgeous. Kumar and Astone are just incredible. The art is lush, even as it embraces a formalist structure in variations on nine panel grids, mixing what you’d possibly consider the order of the European world with the natural feel of India’s jungles.

Like Fearscape and Friendo, you do not want to sleep on this series. Highly, highly recommended.

| Published by Vault

Typhoid Fever: Spider-Man #1 is another limited series of specials similar to the recent Wakanda Forever, spotlighting in this case Typhoid Mary, who seems to undergo a bit of a powers change and a new personality development. It’s the second series being written by Clay McLeod Chapman this week, again giving an interesting different perspective to the storytelling, this time incorporating breaks into delusional fantasies of soap operas. Nice art from Stefano Landini and Rachelle Rosenberg.

| Published by Marvel

Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion #1 is a very welcome return after almost a decade. It hits the same notes of weird and action that I’d expect from Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (with colours from Nick Filardi and letters from Nate Piekos). It is, however, probably about as new reader friendly as reading The Return of the King first. I mean, I’ve read the previous series, loved them, and I’m looking to go back and re-read them because I’m sure I’ve missed things. This issue does nothing to help readers to get reacquainted or caught up on what’s come before.

| Published by Dark Horse

What If...? Spider-Man #1 is among the first of 2018′s volley of What If...? stories. There doesn’t seem to be any particular theme this year, though, just embracing the standard variety of alternate reality formula. Possibly because it’s been three years since the last batch. This one takes on What if Flash Thompson Became Spider-Man? It’s not a half bad story from Gerry Conway, very much taking on the traditional type of morality tale, with some nice art from Diego Olortegui, Walden Wong, and Chris O’Halloran.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Archie #699, Barbarella #10, Black AF: Widows & Orphans #3, Black Crown Quarterly #4, Cloak & Dagger #5, Cosmic Ghost Rider #4, Dark Souls: Age of Fire #4, Deep Roots #4, Doctor Strange #6, DuckTales #13, Eclipse #11, Errand Boys #1, James Bond: Origin #2, Jim Henson’s Beneath the Dark Crystal #3, The Magic Order #4, Noble #12, Paper Girls #25, Spawn #290, Star Wars #55, Star Wars Adventures: Tales from Vader’s Castle #1, Taarna #3, Thief of Thieves #41, TMNT: Macroseries - Donatello #1, Tomb Raider: Inferno #4, Tony Stark: Iron Man #4, War Bears #2

Recommended Collections: Analog - Volume 1: Death by Algorithm, Complete Angel Catbird, Avengers - Volume 1: Final Host, Avengers/Doctor Strange: Rise of the Darkhold, Conspiracy of Ravens, The Dead Hand - Volume 1: Cold War Relics, Doctor Strange - Volume 2: City of Sin, Eternal Empire - Volume 2, The Gravediggers Union - Volume 2, Harrow County - Volume 8: Done Come Back, Hellstorm Omnibus, Manifest Destiny - Volume 6, Me the People, Rough Riders - Volume 3: Ride or Die, The Wicked + The Divine - Volume 7: Mothering Invention, Wrath

d. emerson eddy thinks you should probably look out for more new and exciting--okay, maybe just new--things in the near and/or distant future. Like cars. Please, don’t play in traffic.

#This Week in Comics

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gokinjeespot · 5 years

Text

off the rack #1256

Monday April 1, 2019

Call me an April fool. I thought that the pure joy of comic book collecting was going the way of the Dodo bird but judging from the attendance of yesterday's Capital Comic Book Convention I'm glad to say I am mistaken. No celebrities. No cosplay. No special events. Just a room full of vendors who also love the hobby and collectors looking for unique and fun comics. I want to thank my partner Chris for all his hard work. He made Jee-Riz's booth a standout in the room. "You don't see this sort of stuff very often" was heard more than once.

Archie #703 - Nick Spencer (writer) Sandy Jarrell (artist) Matt Herms (colours) Jack Morelli (letters). So much going on. We find out who attacks Jughead in the woods and why. I want to be a roadie for Josey and the Pussycats. Betty and Veronica enlists the aid of Cheryl Blossom to ferret out if Archie has a new girlfriend. As long as it's not Betty I'm not jealous of the ginger bonehead.

Avengers #17/LGY #707 - Jason Aaron (writer) David Marquez (art) Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This issue has some of the cheesiest dialogue I have ever read. I really hope that the Vampire War is over. This Avengers team is a bit too goody two shoes for me.

Batman #67 - Tom King (writer) Lee Weeks & Jorge Fornes (art) Lovern Kindzierski (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). Knightmares part 5. Batman's in his Batman: Year One costume chasing a masked killer. You'll feel like you're watching a Roadrunner cartoon. The guy in the mask is William Ernest Coyote. You're in for a shock when Batman unmasks him.

Savage Sword of Conan #3 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Ron Garney (art) Richard Isanove (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Conan is captured by the evil wizard Koga Thun but manages to escape to continue his search for treasure. It looks like he's got to fight zombies to get to the treasure. I got all excited when I saw the cover showing Conan fighting alongside Belit but nothing like that happens at all inside. I'm not reading any more of these. I don't like being played for a sucker.

Immortal Hulk #15 - Al Ewing (writer) Joe Bennett (pencils) Ruy Jose (inks) Paul Mounts (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). I love this couch session with Doc Samson and the Hulk, sans couch. The two talk it out after a sniper shoots Betty and the Hulk. Some of the stuff they talk about is quite insightful. You think they're trying to find Betty but they're not. Their final destination is a surprise.

Thor #11 - Jason Aaron (writer) Lee Garbett (art) Antonio Fabela (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). Thor goes looking for his best friend thinking he's going to need all the help he can get in the coming War of the Realms. The Lady Freyja has to make her son stop his foolish search. I like the little snippets showing characters we haven't seen in a while and I can't wait to see what their roles are in the war. Get ready true believers, Malekith is about to invade Midgard.

Avengers LGY #714: No Road Home #7 - Jim Zub, Mark Waid & Al Ewing (writers) Paco Medina (art) Jesus Aburtov (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). This issue features Monica Rambeau/Spectrum. Who better to fight the Queen of Darkness than a being of light. The last page made up for the disappointment I felt reading Savage Sword of Conan #3.

Heroes in Crisis #7 - Tom King (writer) Clay Mann (art pages 1-6, 11, 17,-19, 23-24) Travis Moore (art pages 8-10, 13, 14-16, 20-21) Jorge Fornes (art pages 7, 12, 22) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). You could read this one issue and it wouldn't make a lick of sense unless you've read the previous 6. I even had a hard time understanding what's going on and I've read every issue. I think the only reason I'm going to read the last two issues is to find out if anything makes sense in the end.

Hulkverines #2 - Greg Pak (writer) Guiu Vilanova (art) Morry Hollowell with Chris Sotomayor (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). We go from Hulkverine, the Hulk and Wolverine fighting each other to the three of them teaming up. Meanwhile the Leader and Doctor Alba, who created Hulkverine, do the super villain equivalent of what the three super heroes did. The result is going to be very interesting. This is the first I've seen of Guiu Vilanova's art and I think it's great.

Ironheart #4 - Eve L. Ewing (writer) Luciano Vecchio (art) Geoffo (layouts) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). It's a rematch with Midnight's Fire. This new super villain reminds me of Miles's uncle Aaron AKA the Prowler. I hope there isn't too much overlap between these two young super heroes, otherwise I will get bored with one of them.

The Avant-Guards #3 - Carly Usdin (writer) Noah Hayes (art) Rebecca Nalty (colours) Ed Dukeshire (letters). The team has their first practice and play their first game. Major points to Noah for showing the players following through on their shots. I used to love playing basketball but never made my high school team. So I ended up managing both junior and senior teams and got to practice with them. I would love to find someone my own age to shoot some hoops with right now.

Black Widow #3 - Jen & Sylvia Soska (writers) Flaviano (art) Veronica Gandini (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Natasha's mission to shut down an online pay-per-view torture site goes horribly wrong. I can't wait to see how she gets out of this predicament.

Sabrina the teenage witch #1 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Veronica Fish & Andy Fish (art) Jack Morelli (letters). This new comic book is more like the TV show than the gritty ghoulish title that was on the racks a while ago. I liked the old show but haven't seen the new one. I had a crush on Melissa Joan Hart. I really like the writing and art in this so it's going on my "must read" list.

Dial H for Hero #1 - Sam Humphries (writer) Joe Quinones (art) Dave Sharpe (letters). I mainly bought Marvel comics when I got more spending money and could afford new comic books but I did buy this DC title because I liked the concept. Robby Reed was this nerdy kid who finds a rotary telephone dial that changed him into a different super hero whenever he dialled H-E-R-O. he always had different powers and a different costume. This updated version has a kid named Miguel who is an adrenaline junky. An old timey telephone, the whole thing with handset this time, appears before him as he's plummeting towards certain death and he changes into Monster Truck. The Monster Truck pages are quite Kirbyesque. Throw in a page with Damian/ Robin, Lobo, Snapper Carr, Angel and the Ape, Harley Quinn and Alfred and I am hooked. I liked the town troublemaker Summer too. I am looking forward to seeing their further adventures.

Doctor Strange #12 - Mark Waid (writer) Barry Kitson (pencils) Scott Koblish (inks) Brian Reber (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Herald Supreme part 1. Stephen Strange is bored but he won't be for long. An alien from a warrior race of mystics comes to Earth to ask Doctor Strange how he defeated Galactus. I guess there's no Marvel comics where this guy is from. Seems the world eater is fixing to eat his planet. The super aggressive Zoloz manages to steal all of Doc Strange's mystical power and banishes Galactus in the Mystic Realms. Read this issue to find out why that's a bad idea. Now it's up to Stephen to keep the big purple planet eater from feeding and destroying our universe too.

Action Comics #1009 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Steve Epting (art) Brad Anderson (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Leviathan Rising part 3. Lois is pissed at Amanda Waller but she reigns in her anger to come up with a plan to find out what Leviathan is. We get to see what Gold Kryptonite does, which is kind of cool. It's fun when something new gets added to a story. Superman's transformation surprised me.

Sharkey the bounty hunter #2 - Mark Millar (writer) Simone Bianchi (art & colours) Peter Doherty (letters). This one's a fun space romp. The hunter finds his prey but she's not going to come along quietly.

The Superior Spider-Man #4 - Christos Gage (writer) Mike Hawthorne (pencils) Wade von Grawbadger (inks) Jordie Bellaire (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I hope this change is permanent but it's going to take some getting used to calling Otto but his new identity Elliot. I like how Anna Maria is the woman behind the man. She teaches him a lesson in humility in this issue. Now I have a craving for Polish sausage.

Shazam #4 - Geoff Johns (writer) Dale Eaglesham & Marco Santucci (art) Mike Atiyeh (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Yay, my wish came true. We meet Tawky Tawny the tiger in the first 6 pages. This version is quite dapper. The kids get separated with two in the Wildlands, two in the Gamelands and Mary and Billy in the Funlands, contrary to what the cover shows. Who's going to rescue the Marvel Family? The last page will enlighten you. I'm not excited about the movie hitting theatres on April 5 but if it's as good as this comic book, I might go see it.

Fantastic Four #8 - Dan Slott (writer) Aaron Kuder, Stefano Caselli, David Marquez & Reilly Brown (art) Matt Yackey (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Did someone forget to tell cover artist Esad Ribic that Victorious was female? Doctor Doom has captured both Galactus and the Fantastic Four. He's siphoning off the former's cosmic power and is going to execute the latter. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny are sure in a pickle. I can't wait to see how they get out of it.

The Amazing Spider-Man #18 - Nick Spencer (writer) Humberto Ramos (pencils) Victor Olazaba (inks) Edgar Delgado & Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Hunted part 2. There's a spectre of danger hovering over Mary Jane in the side story. That's always a good plot twist to keep a Spider-Man fan hooked.

Daredevil #3 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Marco Checchetto (art) Sunny Gho (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Know Fear part 3. Daredevil's been shot and is about to be arrested for murder. Detective Cole North aims to bring the suspect in no matter what it takes. I wonder if Canadian Chip Zdarsky picked that name as an inside joke? Just when the "tough-as-nails" ex-Chicago cop is about to succeed, Daredevil is rescued. I chuckled when I saw who it was, and it's not Man-Thing.

Detective Comics #1000 - Is this worth $9.99 US? You bet your sweet bippy it is. I might even buy one for myself, but which cover to pick? Here are the choices.

Main cover by Jim Lee (pencils) Scott Williams (inks) & Alex Sinclair (colours)

1930s by Steve Rude (art)

1940s by Bruce Timm (art)

1950s by Michael Cho (art)

1960s by Jim Steranko (art)

1970s by Bernie Wrightson (art) & Alex Sinclair (colours)

1980s by Frank Miller (art) & Alex Sinclair (colours)

1990s by Tim Sale (art) & Brennan Wagner (colours)

2000s by Jock (art)

2010s by Greg Capullo (art) & FCO Plascencia (colours)

We get 3 pin-ups by:

Mikel Janin (art)

Jason Fabok (art) & Brad Anderson (colours)

Amanda Conner (art) & Paul Mounts (colours)

Then there's all the terrific stories inside that not only shows Batman as a crime fighter but more importantly for this title as a consummate crime solver. You will find all of Batman's family and rogues gallery in here. I loved how this issue was a feast for the eyes too. I'm just going to list the titles of the stories and their creative teams. If you don't buy a copy for your comic book collection then you're missing out on what will be a classic. With a line up like this you can't lose.

Longest Case by Scott Snyder (writer) Greg Capullo (pencils) Jonathan Glapion (inks) FCO Plascencia (colours) & Tom Napolitano (letters).

Manufacture for Use by Kevin Smith (writer) Jim Lee (pencils) Scott Williams (inks) & Alex Sinclair (colours) & Todd Klein (letters).

The Legend of Knute Brody by Paul Dini (writer) Dustin Nguyen (pencils) Derek Fridolfs (inks) John Kalisz (colours) & Steve Wands (letters).

The Batman's Design by Warren Ellis (writer) Becky Cloonan (art) Jordie Bellaire (colours) & Simon Bowland (letters).

Return to Crime Alley by Denny O'Neil (writer) Steve Epting (art) Elizabeth Breitweiser (colours) & AndWorld Design (letters).

Heretic by Christopher Priest (writer) Neal Adams (art) Dave Stewart (colours) & Willie Schubert (letters).

I Know by Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Alex Maleev (art & colours) & Josh Reed (letters).

The Last Crime in Gotham by Geoff Johns (writer) Kelley Jones (art) Michelle Madsen (colours) Rob Leigh (letters).

The Precedent by James Tynion IV (writer) Alvaro Martinez-Bueno (pencils) Raul Fernandez (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) & Sal Cipriano (letters).

Batman's Greatest Case by Tom King (writer) Tony S. Daniel & Joelle Jones (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) & Clayton Cowles (letters).

And finally Medieval by Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Doug Mahnke (pencils) Jaime Mendoza & Doug Mahnke (inks) David Baron (colours) & Rob Leigh (letters).

That last story introduces a new (at least to me) Gotham City crime fighter named the Arkham Knight. His story continues in Detective Comics #1001 and I'm going to snag that issue off the racks to find out who he is.

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