The Week In Geek 1/20/19

It'll be like my Senior Prom...except my date won't leave me to
ride home in the back of another couple's van. Good times.

This Week in Gaming.... So, anyone that keeps up with me on Twitter knows that I've recently purchased a Playstation 4 and, with it, Destiny, the MMO shooter everyone's talking (or whining) about. For someone who hasn't owned a console in more than ten years, this has basically been the equivalent of me plugging into the Matrix. As you can tell from my posts on comics, I read heavily about anything I get into, so yeah....expect a lot of gaming posts to come this year.  
So Destiny. This week, Bungie announced (on Reddit **shudder**) a new event for Valentine's Day which includes a party in the Tower, the game's social hub (which, I should mention, is the most awkward place to try and communicate with other people), some fixes and improvements that will come with next month's update and a special new 2v2 battle in the Crucible (the game's PvP mode). I can only assume this is to pacify the fans who have been complaining that there haven't been any major events such a new strikes or items since The Taken King expansion in October. I also have to say I found it odd that Bungie would announce love is in the air on the same social networking site where nude pics of every celebrity that's ever sexted were leaked and circulated last year. Hopefully, this is the start of Bungie getting a little more improvisational and learning to fully embrace the inherent outlandishness of the MMO crowd they're trying to unite with the FPS crowd they already have. Or maybe what half the internet is saying is true and Bungie is totally just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Who knows?

My reviews for the week on Batman and Tokyo Ghost are up and available on Black Nerd Problems as usual. Feel free to read, comment and share as usual. 

Sneak Peek of Awesome Shit

Okay, so those of you that don't already know (which, apparently, is several of you) deserve to know what I've been up to that has taken me away from writing as much content as I used to. Well...aside from writing for Black Nerd Problems. Here's a sneak peek of my upcoming webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. The art comes compliments of none other than Katie Coats, who is a dear friend and an incredible talent. She approached me with these old sketches she'd done in college of Peter Pan and the Darling family. I was immediately smitten with her vision and unearthed some old notes I'd jotted down ages ago. I pitched her for the hell of it and we decided we had something here.

Basically, it's reimagining of Peter Pan that offers some modern sensibilities to some time honored characters. I've always been in love with the Neverland mythos, but one thing that has always bothered me is how racially problematic some aspects are. I mean, there were whooping, hollering, feather-wearing savage "indians" in the stories. Aside from that, the stories are extremely white. I wanted to tell THIS story, but if I was going to tell it, I wanted brown faces to look at while I do.

Anyway, Katie posted the initial pencils for the first couple of pages on Twitter so I figured I'd share them here with you guys. The official website will be up soon, but until then bare with me since I probably won't be as consistent with content as I've previously been. Looking forward to you all seeing what we have coming.

The Week In Geek 8/27/14

So, one of this week's Geeky Things That People Were Talking About was the announcement that, Donald Glover, to the apparently overwhelming joy of Twitter, will be voicing Miles Morales in an episode of Ultimate Spider-Man. On one hand, it's cool that the social media campaign that inspired Miles in the first place gets a (kinda) win in seeing their idol on screen in some form. I'm just not entirely sure this is that much of a "win." Mainly because Ultimate Spider-Man is a uniquely awful half hour of television. The thing that makes it so notably bad is that a). Spectacular Spider-Man, a perfectly decent show got bumped for this and b). it's a titled after a Brian Michael Bendis work but follows it in the same way the latest batch of X-Men movies follow the comics (meaning there are characters with similar names and attributes, but aside from that....nope). I could go into everything this show does wrong but I digress. Donald Glover.

I'll say this for Marvel: They draw we better
edge-ups than DC (sorry, Mister Terrific).

Let me just say right away that I like Donald Glover. As this is being written, I'm actually listening to his Because the Internet album. I respect that he (as I've found out in the past couple of months) has a fanbase that is, to say the least, rabid. So, I don't have any personal distaste for the guy (I'm really trying hard to save myself any fan backlash here because I've seen them in action).

With that said, he's no Spider-Man, cartoon or otherwise. Black, white, whatever...there's a certain atmosphere of iconic, dormant heroism to everyone to play/voice Marvel's poster child. Tobey Maguire had a wide-eyed, nebbish Luke Skywalker quality to him. Andrew Garfield is a dorky smartass more like the Ultimate Peter from the comics. Even Christopher Daniel Barnes from the animated series that dominated most of the 90s had an unassuming everyman quality. Donald Glover is....well, Troy Barnes. Putting Troy Barnes in a Spider-Man costume is nothing less than fan service. And that's okay. With superhero comics, if they run long enough, it's inevitable that they're all subjected to a degree of fan service. It's just that sometimes, that works out for the better (Dick Grayson as Batman, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Wolverine being on virtually every major Marvel team possible) and sometimes you get Childish Gambino being snarky in a Disney cartoon for 30 minutes.

Then again, I really could have stopped this little analysis at "Ultimate Spider-Man is a uniquely awful cartoon" anyway.

Anywho, my comic reviews for the week are available on Black Nerd Problems for your perusal. As always, feel free to comment, like, share and troll as you see fit. This week, I took a look at.....

All New X-Men: I have to say that I like the groove Bendis has found for his take on the X-franchise. The Original X-Men are at their best when they're getting into trouble while the staff isn't around. I like the direction of the whole "different factions fighting for different aspects of the dream" thing, but the Originals, not having all of that baggage, serve as a nice break from all that without completely departing from it either.

Batman Eternal: Finally, some major plotline payoff!!! This is definitely one of the top 3 best issues of the book. James Tynion IV did a pretty good job of balancing all the plotlines he had to work with. Granted, he conveniently didn't have as many to juggle as pretty much every other writer has, but still. Masterful job getting to Gotham's big upheaval. I'm VERY excited about what's next.

The Week In Geek 7/23/14

This week certainly wasn't as action packed as last week.

-Most of my week was dedicated to the Twitter drive to get BNP followers up. If you haven't done so already, please follow the collective @blknrdproblems on Twitter AND Instagram for the latest in updates, news, links to articles as soon as their available, live tweets and all manner of miscellaneous nerd fuckery.

-I'm still looking for a new name for The Blog, so tweet me (@letsgetfree13), email me (letsgetfree13@gmail.com), Facebook me if you have any ideas for a name. I want to rename this bad boy before I run away to Wordpress, so your help would be appreciated.

My comic reviews for the week are currently up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your approval...or disapproval, as it were. This week, I took a look at....

Batman Eternal: Okay, this issue wasn't quite as strong as last week's outing, but it certainly felt less cluttered and that's always a godsend to this book.

Batman: This finale to Zero Year mainly lived up to the hype brought on by all the awesomeness of the past year. Scott Snyder has a win and a half on his hands. One slightly unrelated thing it brought to light for me was one of the fundamental flaws in The Dark Knight Rises: Alfred Pennyworth would NEVER leave Batman. Ever. Granted, I understand the context Christopher Nolan was trying to create. Rises was intended to be about Batman losing EVERYTHING.

Money- Wayne Enterprises goes broke.

Love- The idea that Bruce lost his one chance at a normal lie was taken from him with the revelation that Rachel was going to choose Harvey Dent instead of him.

The Power to Scare The Living Shit Out of Evil- "Ohhh, you think darkness is your ally..."

Gadgets- "You're precious armory, gratefully accepted. We will need it."

You get the picture. Batman was broken down to his most base components and forced to find his way back to everything he had and everyone he loved....including Alfred. But this is awkward not only because Bruce and Alfred have some of the best exchanges of the entire trilogy and having Michael Caine in 75% of your movie is simply a bad idea, but because Alfred is the ONE real constant in his life. This is what Zero Year does well: We know full well that Bruce Wayne will be Batman for as long as his body will allow it and maybe even some time after that. But Alfred will always be standing beside him to remind him of what the life he could always aspire to some day. He's not just his conscience. He's his humanity. That's why it's almost an unspoken rule that he would never abandon Batman.

The Thing About Internet Spoilers

I've been meaning to talk about this for a while now, but didn't really have a good example to springboard the topic. The best example in the past few weeks I can think of is probably the "Royal Wedding" on Game of Thrones. People lost their shit about the ending and set Twitter on FIRE. It's a pretty well known fact that Twitter knows no chill even on its slow days, but this was an especially HILARIOUS night to bear witness to.

In fact, this is such a special spoiler, I'm not even going to talk about it until after the jump.

My Bone to Pick with Jimmy Kimmel

So, the Rob Ford "interview" happened on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week and to say it was sleaze at its finest might be a vast understatement. And I'm not just talking about "Toronto's crack mayor" (Kimmel's own words from an earlier show, by the way). Granted, it's wasn't worse than Kimmel leaning into Leno that one time, but it still was pretty cringe worthy. He brought Ford on and showed him his, more or less, worst public moments (that we've all seen on YouTube by now) of the past year and made him twist in the wind explaining them (and by "explaining them," I mean "just sweating a lot") as he and the audience laughed on. Basically, it a comedic, condescending, kinda mean spirited version of The Trial of Rob Ford.

The Toronto denizens of Twitter were, bare minimum, less than amused. And, honestly, it's hard to hold it against them. I mean, by most accounts, as far as Canadian politics go, Ford is quite possibly The Worst , so let me make this clear that I'm NOT defending Rob Ford. Having said that....

Despite several instances of previously being hilarious in my book, in this case....Jimmy Kimmel is sort of a piece of shit.

It's one thing when someone like Newt Gingrich or Bill O'Reilly comes on the Daily Show. Jon Stewart makes no attempt to hide the fact that, despite being a comedian on a comedy themed network, he's a well read guy who knows his shit and likes to challenge the "logic" (or as close to logic as Newt Gingrich ever gets) of those he disagrees with. What happened on Monday night was akin capturing a bear in the wilderness, putting a dress on it and poking in the ass with a stick to lead it around a circus tent.

It was also very clear in more than one instance throughout the interview that Kimmel had invited him on under the guise of being a pal, wanting to redeem him (the jig was up when Ford turned out to be stupid to keep up the lie that he reached out to Kimmel) in the court of public opinion even though America is not Canada.

Now, on one hand...I can see the reasoning behind someone reading this post, wondering, "Who gives a shit?" I mean, it's Rob Ford. He's an awful person who earned the comedic tar 'n feathering in the town square he's getting and will likely continue to get for the remainder of his time in the public eye, right?

The only problem with this logic is that he's not just an awful person. He's an addict.

It's well documented that the majority of Ford's meandering through the various catacombs of his own stupidity have been fueled by, among other thing, alcohol, making it clear to most (including his own staff, several of which have resigned mumbling about how desperately he needs help) that he has serious substance abuse issues.

It's also well documented that Ford has an almost superhuman (or subhuman, depending on how you look at it) talent for slithering his way out of ever taking responsibility for anything. With that in mind, bringing him on late night talk for what amounted to Kimmel's rendition of a Daniel Tosh Web Redemption...is not any form of help, a beacon of social contempt or even a tap on the wrist. In other words, he was let off easy.

In the generation where amoral people get reality television shows and million dollar book deals for much less....it's a reward. It's a statement that says, with flashing neon lights, "As long as you're destroying yourself where we can see you and laugh, our amusement is a suitable currency with which you can barter for our silence." After all, we wouldn't want the guy to feel like maybe he should have to do something revolutionary like fix himself, right?

Society deserves better. Toronto deserves better.

Jimmy Kimmel is a piece of shit because maybe he isn't the drug dealer, but he's definitely the dickbag driving the addict to the drug deal in exchange for gas money.

The Best Thing On The Internet This Week....

So, the internet rumor mill has been working double time (almost as hard as I worked trying to figure out why anyone watches Storage Wars), trying to guess who's in line to inherit the role of Batman for his team up with Superman in Man of Steel 2: Steel Harder. So far, all we know for certain is that it's not the Royal Baby and it's not Christian Bale since he's all but made a blood vow that he's done with Batman. Rumor has it that one of the names on the short list over at Warner Bros. to don the cape and cowl is none other than.....

Courtesy of @Renan_Ishin

That's right!!! Ryan Gosling, the guy from The Notebook, Blue Valentine and Crazy Stupid Love is a rumored frontrunner to play the Caped Crusader. As wrong as this is, I'd sell my body to science to see this happen. The most sensitive Batman EVER. Twitter went into a frenzy. Well, really just me and a couple other people, but...you know...same thing. It's a cheap shot on my part, but I can't think of a moment in which that's ever stopped me before.

@comicsopolis "Hey, Girl...these aren't the cuddles you deserve, but they're the cuddles you need right now." #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

@comicsopolis @MikeFromNowhere "Hey, Girl...tell me where Lex hid the Kryptonite. Then you have my permission to love." #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

"Hey, Girl....the cops can handle this one. The Gilmore Girls marathon is on in 15 minutes." #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

Finally, the Bruce Wayne in a beanie, flared jeans and ironic t-shirt we've all waited for.... #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

He researches his knock-out gas to make sure it isn't animal tested while listening to Clay Aiken..... #RyanGoslingBatman @MikeFromNowhere
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

@letsgetfree13 @comicsopolis Oh my. I've just had a thought. https://t.co/VfHBueSynF
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

Oh man. What if the Driver from "Drive" was Gosling-Batman's version of MATCHES MALONE
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

@KingOfMars Remember, this is Movie Batman, who has a code against killing right up until he doesn't.
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

@KingOfMars *pushes Harvey Dent to his death* ♪♫ Real human being ♪♫ And a real hero ♪♫
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013