My GAWD, Shame On Me For Not Talking About Westworld

Originally, I was going to do a post about the current state of The Walking Dead, but there’s probably nothing new I can add to that conversation other than the fact that this season is probably the most divisive I’ve ever seen among fans. 

Then, I was going to do a post outlining each part of the yearly Arrowverse crossover which now includes four separate shows, two and a half of which are particularly terrible. However, I could only sit through two episodes and it doesn’t feel right railing on a story when it’s entirely feasible (but probably not) that the conclusion featured in Legends of Tomorrow could have turned things around and made this event tolerable. So we’ll mark that as “to be continued.” 

Then I was going to update you about how Civil War II is going, but I don’t think anyone will be surprised to know that it’s still pimpled butt cheeks. The past three issues have been going over the same three points over and over: 1). Captain Marvel is strong and wrong; 2). The young heroes are sick of the old heroes and their shit and 3). Spider Man really doesn’t want to go to jail. So yeah, still awful.

And then I realized that while I’ve been looking one way, HBO’s sci-fi mind bender, Westworld has been low key becoming the best show on television. It hits all the obligatory markers of an HBO show….obscene budget, brilliant A list casting, first class writing. Clearly, the network is aiming for this to be the successor to the crown currently occupied by Game of Thrones which is officially on its way out. But the show goes a little further than that, ambitiously reaching past the story’s roots from the Michael Crichton movie. 

There are spoilers after this point. They are really MINOR spoilers but I'm still obligated (by the fact that I don't want to hear whining about spoilers) to tell you that there are spoilers after the jump. That's four times I've mentioned spoilers. Five now. So I don't want to hear any bullshit about it.

Night of the Awful Slavery/Zombie Episode.....

So, you’ll notice one comic related show I never talk about is Legends of Tomorrow. It’s not because I don’t find time to watch it or because I ration out my television time among select shows. It’s because, last I checked, Legends of Tomorrow was a generally terrible show. Of all the shows that make up CW’s Arrowverse, Legends is the one that most resembles Fox’s approach towards the X-Men movies. Take a few fan favorite characters, some good looking actors, a nerdy premise, shake well and the result is….well...a fucking mess.

For those of you that had the good sense to skip the show up to now, there are people out there fucking up space and time for various and sometimes, undefined reasons. So, the Doctor Rip Hunter went against the wishes of the Time Masters Lords came to the present day to ask Oliver Queen and Barry Allen to vouch for him so he could recruit a team of misfits including Firestorm, Heatwave and Not Quite Tony Stark the Atom. They call themselves the Legends (despite this being among the silliest team names of all time). So, this is the part where I go into a recap of the worst episode of anything I've watched in at least the past two months. There are spoilers, so if you're brave enough to still watch this horseshit after said recap, just know that there are spoilers after the jump.

Update: Arrow is Still Trash

Since I haven’t done a post in a while, I might as well check back in with comic based television. I know I said I was done with Arrow last season, but after seeing the trailer for the new season, I got curious as to where they were headed. The result is my first real hate-watch since Smallville. I mean….there are just so many bad things taking place, but the small handful of good things keep me interested in how they’re going to maintain them.

First off, I talked about this before but the whole thing with Oliver Queen maybe/maybe not doing murder is just getting silly. The whole point of a superhero is that they stand on a very basic code of morals, whatever that code may be. It’s hard to know if you’re the kind of superhero these people want to stand behind if that code is changing from season to season. If the writers are going to be so deadset on modeling the Green Arrow after Batman, he’s gotta be less indecisive than that.

And this whole Arrow Academy storyline wavers between “trash” and “kinda tolerable fan service.” And the main problem isn’t that the new team is garbage (although the new team IS garbage); it’s that the only reason there’s a new team is because the writers realized they’ve written all of the old team into a corner. Diggle has fallen so far from awesomeness, he had to run off to the Army just to have a sense of identity. A SUPERHERO had to quit superheroing and rejoin the Army just to feel like somebody. That’s a problem. Meanwhile, Ollie’s sister, Thea has quit being Speedy/Red Arrow to join her brother in politics just to have a credible storyline that isn’t focused on either a). her daddy issues or b). her consistently terrible choices in boyfriends. And Felicity is sick of being Oliver’s enabler even though she stuck around to continue serving as Oliver’s enabler. Because make no mistake, one of the primary reasons that the Green Arrow is an asshole is because Felicity spent four seasons telling him that his best, most dickish self is the key to beating the bad guys. Granted, this week’s episode was probably the best one thus far simply because the scene of Team Arrow assembling was epic (not to mention Stephen Amell settling his wrestling beef yet again with Cory “Stardust” Rhodes who played the villain of the week).

The problem with this show digging so hard into the Batman well is that Batman doesn’t work in a weekly CW show. Batman works well in comics and movies because either you’re not reminded constantly of what an irredeemable douche he is.

In any case, the show is probably going to crawl along on this redemption run until the Green Arrow finally throws down with Prometheus because there’s only room for one Impossible White Man in Star City. But for the most part, it feels like the show is trying so hard to gain its viewers trust back, it's just a reminder of how much they've fucked up.

How the Village Failed David Walker

So, recently, David Walker announced on Facebook that Marvel had left his Nighthawk series out of the November solicitations….meaning it was being canceled. Walker went on to soothe his savage fans (this includes myself), being as candid and classy about the whole thing as he could. After all, he still has his Luke Cage and Iron Fist series as well as the upcoming Occupy Avengers, so I'm sure he's not crying himself to sleep. Honestly, this is why I don’t take the complaints about blackwashing characters seriously.

Fans will whine and cry and moan about how the Big Two should focus on building up existing characters of color or creating new characters instead of having them take up the monikers of white heroes. And sure, this is valid but the problem here is that when the industry listens to the audience and gives us what we want, nobody buys it. This has been the case with Static Shock, Mister Terrific, Deathlok, Black Panther: Man Without Fear (though that last one was probably canceled more because it was meh) and the list goes on.

Nighthawk was essentially every single thing the audience has been calling for. Walker delivered an honest, upfront, challenging book that dusted off a black character that people really enjoyed from Supreme Power/Squadron Supreme. I mean, a Batman analog beating the shit out of corrupt cops in Chicago? That’s worth its weight in vibranium. And David Walker is a solid, prolific writer, so you can’t really say that Marvel didn’t put quality talent into it. We let books go to the wayside and then complain that we’re not getting what we want. We can’t have it both ways. At some point, a company (because it’s not unreasonable for Marvel to want to make money) is eventually going to go with what makes money and if that means the Falcon gets to be Captain America (which makes more sense than detractors are willing to admit) or that Kamala Khan gets to take Carol Danvers’ old name (in an Eisner award winning book, by the way), so be it. Meanwhile, if you want to whine about Marvel not being original, sure, that argument can be had. But if you’re going to complain, you have to at least meet the industry half way when they actually make a consorted effort to give you what you want. It takes a village to raise our own heroes up, but when we let decent material pass us by after complaining that it doesn't exist, I wonder if there was ever a village to begin with. Just thinking out loud. My review on the finale of Tokyo Ghost is available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. And don't forget about my webcomic collaboration with Katie Coats, Neverland: The Untold as well

My Review of The Get Down

This is my review of the Get Down. There will be spoilers so if you haven't watched the Part One of Season One of The Get Down, here is your stop. For everyone else, proceed to reading after the jump.

Update: Civil War II Still Sucks

So, for those of you keeping up and those of you who haven't, I just wanted to check in and remind you that Civil War II is still a thing that's going on and it's still pretty stupid. I mean, granted, it's not nearly as stupid as DC fans starting to petition to end a website for keeping count of how many people think a movie they like is good or bad (because that's all Rotten Tomatoes is, really), but it's still pretty stupid for reasons other than the ones we've already discussed. So, it merits at least some discussion....which will occur after the jump.

The Killing Joke: Hard Pass.

So, this week in Doing It Wrong, it turns out that DC's animated adaptation of Alan Moore's Killing Joke story holds true to DC's long standing tradition of taking things Alan Moore did and making them worse. It's been leaked that the movie takes a Batman and Batgirl's relationship down a different road. Long story short....they fuck.

idk how to feel about this pic.twitter.com/gsBGHsYet5

— ☕ (@AcroNite7) July 22, 2016

It's not enough that DC would be so socially out of touch with their audience's current social issues that they would think it's a good idea to bring back an infinitely triggering story with questionable gender politics. It's not enough that they have to go the extra mile and strain an already borderline non-existent relationship with a creator they've alienated countless times over the years. But then they have to change a story to make it twice as problematic at a time when readers seem to enjoy Barbara Gordon as Batgirl (one of the few things the New 52 reboot got right in retrospect), kicking ass. Why open yourself up to even more feminist critique than this story already deserves (and make no mistake....it deserves a great deal of feminist critique)? Just for context, we're talking about a story where even Moore himself, who has a long history of writing super rapey books, admitted that the editorial team at the time should have stepped in and stopped him. We're at a point where we shouldn't still be having rudimentary conversations about using women as props to anger men into battle to slay the dragon.

It's not even necessary in a Batman story. The character has virtually every reason to be pissed off built into him already. He's a traumatized orphan fighting in the most crime-y city ever in the history of comics. And, really, that's just if the writers in question decide he even needs a reason which, according the Arkham game series, he doesn't. Now, you have to give him yet another pseudo-girlfriend to house all his commitment issues? DC seems to be wearing their inability to "get it" right for women like an awarded badge of honor. The Killing Joke is their acceptance speech.



My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars and the exponentially bad Green Lanterns are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. And don't forget my webcomic collaboation with Katie Coats, Neverland: the Untold. This week was a double page week to get us back on schedule so check out Pages 31 AND 32.

Why Suicide Squad Might End Up Being Trash....

So, I wanted to talk very briefly about why I'm less and less excited about Suicide Squad.

I'm not even going to touch on the problems with making a movie based on a comic that has probably been rebooted no less than three times and has likely sold about as many copies in six years.

When the trailer first debuted, it looked fantastic even though it's not really fooling anyone into believing that it's anything other than a vehicle to introduce Harley Quinn and Jared Leto's Joker. And it seems to be doing a lot of things right. It's a diverse cast taking the DC universe in a direction Marvel hasn't explored yet (even though I would pay ungodly sums of money to see Marvel do a Thunderbolts movie). But now that Batman v Superman has come and (thankfully) gone, it's brought a bit of context to the kind of world we're being sold. Check it.



"What if Superman had decided to fly down, rip off the roof of the White House and grab the President right out of the Oval Office? Who would have stopped him?"

First of all, depending on how this election shakes out, I doubt anyone would have a problem with that so that's not the scariest imagery one could invoke to establish Superman as a threat (which is the main thing wrong with BvS, but I'm not having that discussion anymore). Second, if Superman did go rogue and attack the White House, what in the WORLD WIDE FUCK are Deadshot, Harley Quinn and Katana going to do about it aside from die screaming? The problem with these "hit squad to stop the most powerful people on Earth" scenarios is that they always involve recruiting people that stand NO CHANCE of stopping the most powerful people on Earth. I mean, sure, it's a good move to feature Batman in the movie to show off how badass the Suicide Squad is up against A-listers, but let's be honest, y'all. The ONLY reason Batman was able to contend with Superman in Yawn of Justice is because the script required Superman be an unfathomably stupid chump to even be goaded into a fight in the first place. So, right there, you're not going to convince me that Killer Croc is the go-to guy if Superman decides to say, "fuck it."

Most importantly, the Suicide Squad's whole thing is that they're badasses willing to do things the good guys either can't fathom doing or don't have the balls to do. But the first two movies have Batman and Superman, DCs two standards for how heroism works in their universe, going about as far as you can go....which is murder.

If Superman isn't above murder and Batman isn't above murder (because OH SWEET JESUS, HE MURDERS SO MANY PEOPLE), why does it matter that the Suicide Squad's bread and butter is murder? I'm not saying this movie doesn't still stand a chance of being fun to look at or that we won't get some epic moments from some key characters. I know I'm pretty excited about the prospect of a Batfleck/Joker car chase. But I'm cautious about a movie that has negated all of its most obvious stakes and reasons to care before the thing even started pre production.

Just something to think about.

The Week In Geek 6/22/16: Civil War II Is Stupid So Far

So, Civil War II: Civil Harder, has begun in the Marvel Universe and we're two issues in so that's as good a place as any to start talking about it.

Disclaimer: I'm talking about Civil War II, so I'm talking directly about the plot which means there are spoilers. So, if you guys don't want to hear about it, go ahead and jump ship now. Otherwise, there are spoilers after the jump. I've warned you.

The Week in Geek 6/8/16: A DC Reboot Is Problematic or Water Is Wet.

As much as I tried to avoid talking about this, here I am giving my limited viewpoint of DC Rebirth, DC's attempt to fix something that used to be broken but isn't really THAT broken anymore but made a lot of people mad back when it was broken. First of all, trying to undo the sins of the New 52, something fans were pissed about five years ago, now that it turns out Big Two comic sales are looking down recently is like an abusive spouse taking you to Red Lobster because they remembered you asked for it five years ago when you met: Thanks but you'd still appreciate it if they stopped abusing you. (From this point, I discuss actual events that have taken place in certain DC comics, so if you're not at least two weeks up to date and you actually care about spoilers, go ahead and stop here. For everyone else, further discussion happens after the jump.)

The Week in Geek: 5/25/16 or My Breakup With Arrow

So, This Week in Superhero Television.....I think I'm done with Arrow. For those of you that don't follow me on Twitter, I do the weekly livetweet for Flash and Arrow under the Black Nerd Problems account. One of my editors, Omar Holmon, used to do it, but I think his neighbors found out he was stealing cable and he had to shut that shit down. Anyway, I'd usually be honored by the opportunity, but Arrow's redemption season has been a painful trudge to the middle of the road. I mean, the show has maintained a steady standard of "not as good as The Flash but better than Legends of Tomorrow" but let's be honest; that's not a high bar to clear in the first place.

When this season started, there seemed to be some light at the end of the tunnel, an attempt to right some of the creative wrongs committed in the previous season. But the writers seemed to make an almost deliberate attempt to solve those problems by either highlighting everything that's been wrong with the show or stepping over said problems altogether. Case in point, the Black Canary II. There has been no one more against Laurel Lance taking her sister's mantle than me. They choreographed her fight choreography terribly and she spent the past two seasons being unnecessarily unlikeable. So, you would think I would be happy they killed her off. But then, her Earth 2 doppelganger shows up on The Flash and she stole the whole episode. She was an amazingly fun villain as the Black Siren, it brought into realization that the writers just plain squandered her on Arrow as opposed to the thought that she'd fallen so hard, she couldn't be written back into glory again. It was just a waste, retrospectively.

The finale was like a window display of everything that's been wrong with this show. Much of this show has been about Oliver Queen's fight against his darker nature and the killer instincts that he picked up during his time on The Island From LOST. For a few episodes, they telegraphed to viewers that the way to combat Damian Dahrk's Sith Lord Magic was for him to expel the darkness in his own heart and embrace the light. But in the end....after Dahrk's magic was nullified by the people of Star City using The Third Act In Dark Knight Rises against him...Oliver ended up succumbing to the darkness by killing Dahrk after he was clearly beaten. Even Diggle, the Arrow's moral compass ended up giving into his dark side by murdering the older brother whose soul he'd been trying to save all season because Andy trolled him a little in defeat. I mean, really, Diggle had turned to the dark side when he tried to kidnap his enemy's wife and pistol whipped her in broad daylight, but hey....who's counting at this point? It's just strange that the show has spent all this time cloning Batman (more blatantly in the finale than ever before) and yet picked the strangest time to step out of Batman's shadow. One of the big problems with American shows like this is that they go on past their structural shelf life. In a perfect world, Arrow would have ended after Season Two when he defeated Slade Wilson and conquered the darkness within the second time (he's gone back and forth about killing no less than four times not including his useless flashbacks to The Island From LOST). But because the endgame is to monopolize CW with entire blocks of the Arrowverse (as is more evident by the inclusion of Supergirl), these shows have to go on being built far away from the foundations they were built on and the past season is the resulting category 4 shit storm. Rest In Peace, Arrow. We will never forget. But we will try.

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars and The Mighty Thor are available on Black Nerd Problems. And don't forget my ongoing webcomic series with Katie Coats, Neverland: The Untold.

A Brief Opinion of Civil War

So, I finally got around to getting out to the theater to see Civil War yesterday (I waited a week so there'd be less humans and crying babies to trigger my Akira-like, rage powered telekinesis) and I'm going to go ahead and skip the obvious angle of comparing to the DC's latest dumpster fire, Batman v Superman because the comparison is almost insulting to Civil War which is, undoubtedly, the better movie on virtually every discernible level. I'm going to jump out there and say that this movie is the linchpin that makes the Captain America trilogy surpass the Dark Knight trilogy which, up to this point, was the Godfather of superhero sagas.

There are spoilers after the jump. Not a lot or even major spoilers, but there are spoilers there. So, yeah.

The New Game of Thrones Trolling Experience

So, Game of Thrones happened in the past couple of weeks. I was going to do a post about it after the season premiere but I wanted to wait until two episodes had passed because GoT has a habit dedicating one episode purely to set-up for what's to come. And that's basically what happened.

For those of you keeping score, that's that kid's uncle. He's also
that kid's father AND he fucked the boy's mom in that same spot.

I'm glad I waited until after the second episode to form an opinion because it's plainly obvious now that the format has changed. Obviously (except for the Iron Islands stuff), the showrunners have run out of book material to follow and honestly, it's the best goddamned thing to happen to this show in the past two seasons. See, there was a time when the showrunners made an attempt at a 1:1 representation of the source material as established by George R. R. Martin and before anything else, Martin is an extinction level troll. He loves that people lose their collective shit when someone who may or may not have deserved it gets killed off. That said, the source material can be long and torturous to its characters. So, "staying faithful" to it means we would have had to sit through half a season of Roose Bolton telling Ramsey to get his shit together after he does something unforgivably evil and macabre or no less than six episodes of Tyrion Lannister realizing that he is the smartest person in the room and STILL has to be the one to do the legwork nobody else wants to do in the service of saving the day. But now that the ship is set on "sail", the showrunners get to advance the plot at their leisure. So, now, Arya only has to go through a couple episodes of Daredevil training before we see some payoff. Just two episodes before Ramsey finally gets sick of his father's shit and does the thing we all knew he should have done a season ago (Jesus Christ, he had his JUST BORN baby brother fed to dogs on sight before even washing his father's blood off the dagger). As the writer of a comic whose first issue is primarily set-up, I appreciate the time it takes to create a universe and lay groundwork, but I feel like we're at a point where the training wheels can be taken off and viewers can all have an experience together without being divided by people who are on the edge of their seat and people who've read the books and are just waiting for one shoe or another to drop. We can all be trolled together and that's a good thing....unless they start with that rape shit again.

My comic review for the week on Invincible Iron Man is up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. Feel free to like, share or comment at your own discretion

The Week In Geek 4/20/16

So, This Week In Excuses to Move On From Batman v Superman.....It's recently been announced that Marvel/Disney's Inhumans movie, previously scheduled for a July 2019 release, no longer has a release date. That's not to say that it's no longer on the schedule but usually when things like this happen, it's because the studio has to make room for an impending franchise (**cough** Spider Man) because his appearance in the previews for a certain upcoming film (**cough** Civil War) has tested well thus far, so it's probably a good thing that they're staying flexible with this Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, they should probably have time to rethink whatever they had in mind for the film since Agents of SHIELD has spent the past two seasons mining the whole Inhumans thing with their Secret Warriors plotline (which has successfully reinvigorated the show with a new sense of identity).

Also, there's the whole rumor that Marvel might be coming to an mutual X-Men deal with Fox to use them....but I don't believe that shit just yet, so we'll move on.

This Week in Superhero Television.....It turns out there is a script in the can for Krypton, a Gotham style Superman prequel show. Apparently, the pilot is set two generations before Krypton's destruction where Superman's grandfather tries to bring honor back to the House of El. Here's why this is stupid. Why the FUCK are we doing a show about a planet we KNOW is going to die. I mean, we actually know how this is going to end. There are literally NO STAKES involved. Now, there is a chance that they could take this in a psuedo-Game of Thrones direction where upper crust Kryptonians wrestle for political and military power, which would wipe away the time honored "We were a peaceful, technologically advanced and unilaterally boring as fuck civilization that basically sets the stage to let our future protagonist grow up with abandonment issues" approach we've seen for God knows how long. However, this premise as is has the same problem Gotham has: primetime superhero television's compulsive need to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator viewer that will be perfect happy just to name drop popular names from the comics wherever possible (which, in a show two generations before anything relatively Superman happens, consists exclusively of Zod, Jor-El and maybe Brainiac depending on what version you're going with). And sure, Titanic took place in an ill fated setting too and it made tons of money, but this is primetime (probably broadcast basic cable at best) television so it's highly doubtful that any network that falls under that umbrella is willing to shell out that level of production quality to a show about Superman's grandfather. So, we'll see.

My comic reviews for the week on Tokyo Ghost, The Mighty Thor and Superman: American Alien are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure.

And don't forget about my the latest page of my comic collaboration with Katie Coats, Neverland: The Untold. As always feel free to like, share and comment at your leisure. You know the drill.

The Problem With Fanboys: Batman v Superman Edition

So, the reviews are for Batman v Superman and at this point, I think we're far enough away from the release to say the overall response is somewhat mixed (which is mainly considered bad for a movie that made no bones about putting all of its eggs firmly in one basket. The most entertaining aspect so far has been the backlash to the backlash. As someone that wanted this film to be good enough to rival Marvel or at least show the potential to do so, it is hilarious to watch DC fans who bet the farm on Dawn of Justice do backflips to defend it at its most indefensible moments. 

Serioiusly, guys, it's come down to people claiming that people hating it because of their "Marvel bias" is what has caused the movie to tank. The argument is that fans are being hyper critical of plotholes that they would have let pass in a Marvel movie. Now, that could be so. After all, plenty of good movies have inconsistencies. The problem is that Batman v Superman doesn't do itself any favors. See, plotholes can be overlooked if the movie manages to be entertaining and effective in other aspects. For example, if Robert Downey Jr. is entertaining enough, it's easy to forget about some instances in The Avengers movies when logic falls apart. Now, multiply that factor times Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Joss Whedon's sarcastic self aware script (in the first movie, at least), the occasional Don Cheadle "BOOM, you looking for this?" joke, etc. It's drinking Jack and Coke; you coating something arguably hard to swallow with something that is decidedly less hard to swallow. To call Batman v Superman hard to swallow would be a vast understatement. And it's not just because sad sack ass Movieverse Superman is like the superhero version of Eyeore from Winnie the Pooh or because Batman (despite being awesome) was a walking Call of Duty killstreak or because parts of the movie require the lead characters (one of which is the World's Greatest Detective) to be utterly stupid for the barely discernible plot to make sense. It's the fact that all of these put together amount to Zack Snyder's blatant disdain for his audience. He was so obviously salty about having to tone it down and being unable to do new Superman murder, he devoted the opening to a ground level, 9/11 view of the old Superman murder. This isn't even speculation because Snyder has been trying to justify himself since Man of Steel, saying weird shit like superheroes murdering are okay as long as they don't murder as much as the First Order from The Force Awakens (for those of who didn't see The Force Awakens, Zack Snyder compared the two most popular superheroes in human history to an empire of evil space nazis capable of destroying star systems. That his benchmark for good guy murder, y'all.

Marvel has demonstrated at least some regard for doing what they believe the fans want. Even when you have to eat your vegetables (Thor 2), you're offered some dessert (Guardians of the Galaxy) when you finish them. Dawn of Justice is an marginally edible block of instant microwaveable meat loaf and Zack Snyder is the barely attentive nanny who just wants you to shut the fuck up and finish your dinner while he eats your dessert right in front of you. There's a scene where Holly Hunter looks terrified at the sight of a jar of human urine, a callback to Lex Luthor's metaphor about pissing on someone and telling them it's Granny's Peach Tea. First off, the idea of a superhero movie that features a giant jar of piss is, in itself, beyond the pale. Second, it's actually a very apt metaphor for the movie and the director's relationship with it and the viewership. Batman v Superman is two hours of piss and Zack Snyder hates you for not having the imagination to pretend it's peach tea as you choke it down. So, there's that.

Don't forget to check out my Black Nerd Problems comic review of Invincible Iron Man. Feel free to like, review, and comment as you see fit.

We Need to Talk About Batman v Superman

***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!! THEY'RE MINOR BUT STILL***

So, I finally got around to heading to the movie theater to check out Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and umm....yeah, we need to talk about that.

The movie wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. It looked fantastic. Zack Snyder knows how to create truly legendary looking moments in a way that pulls directly from comic book aesthetic. The problem is that as much as Snyder looks to the artform visually, he doesn't show that much respect for the stories structurally. Most of the actors were perfectly fine in their roles (except Jesse Eisenberg, who I'm convinced thought he was playing the Riddler), doing their very best with this Bernie Sanders hairdo of a script. Amazingly enough, Ben Affleck, who everyone was so worried about, was an awesome Batman. The issue wasn't really the cast, it was the fact that the creative team doesn't really understand the characters they're working with. In fact, I can see how Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman has been lauded by critics since she was the one character that Snyder fucked up the absolute least.  

A lot of the fanboys are on the whole "Batman doesn't kill" thing which we have to accept is bullshit and has always been bullshit in the context of Batman films. My issue is Batman and guns. To Batman...at least since the silver age, guns have always been a symbol of the crime that plagues his city and the thing that took his parents. In many ways, it's borders on a post traumatic experience for him. Dream or not, the visual of him gunning down flunkies is a little weird. Other than that, Affleck pulls off the duality of Bruce and Batman. Bruce Wayne is a damaged old man whose childhood night terrors conjure the Batman, an vengeful armored man-golem who drops down on superstitious villains like the Righteous Hand of God.

The plotline that worries me the most is this "People are scared of Superman" premise. If you're writing a story about how people are scared of Superman, you don't really understand the point of Superman. We're talking about a character who, despite being an alien, is the absolute pinnacle of human goodness. He's a beacon of hope. Hell, "hope" is literally written in a big red symbol on his chest. Superman inspires people to be their better selves. He loves humanity, sees the best in us even when we don't see it ourselves. The guy they have Henry Cavill playing has sad eyes all the time, is almost resentful of humanity (probably because his mother reinforces the antithesis of his father's idea that he owes his gifts to the world..."You don't owe this world a thing"....what the fuck kind of thing is that to say to a superhero?). The fucked up thing is that even with Snyder's Superman being tattooed with all these blantant misnomers and misunderstandings of the character, he still has to fight Batman for a plotline and some decent character development to call his own. In that regard, this movie is quite true to its title. Having said that, it's pretty obvious that Snyder is setting Batman up to be the leader of the impending Justice League which is also bullshit. Why the FUCK would a guy who commonly hides in the shadows, only comes out at night and employs fear and deception as his weapons want to lead what is almost certain to be the most visible, flashy group of peacekeepers their world will ever know?

I mean...what happened to this guy?

And I haven't even gotten to the ENDLESS plotholes left gaping wide by Snyder's compulsive need to have his characters positioned perfectly to play out the pretty scene he wants to see like a six year old setting up action figures in a playset just to bang them together and scream "BOOM" repeatedly. I think that's what I resent most about this movie: It reinforces the idea that just because they come from comics, all these sort of movies have to be is loud and obnoxious with heroes that aren't particularly heroic like Transformers. But in all likelihood, that's going to be this franchise's bread and butter if Dawn of Justice is the measuring stick.

The Week In Geek- 3/23/16: Well, That Happened....

I know this is usually where I'd offer some comprehensive review on the things I liked and didn't like about Batman vs. Superman, but I haven't seen it. Honestly, I'm not in much of a rush to see a Superman movie where the entire premise is based on "people are scared of Superman." Having said that.... 

Welp. Batman v Superman is finally here and apparently holding at somewhere around 30% on Rotten Tomatoes which is....well, bad. I'm sure it's more than a minor cause for concern over at Warner Brothers because, correct me if I'm wrong, Justice League Part One is ready to begin filming. With the myriad of criticisms about BvS, the studio has some hard decisions to make about the overall direction Zack Snyder is taking DC's cinematic universe. Then again, Man of Steel has been a target of an equal amount of criticism and it doesn't seem to have slowed Snyder's vision at all, so it's entirely possible that this could end up being one of those franchises like Transformers or even X-Men where the movies are consistently trash but not trash enough for people to stop watching them. But for that to happen, this movie would have to do Transformers numbers at the box office (if you're waiting for me to explain how Transformers keeps doing numbers, nobody's that smart), meaning that people would have to either show up to the theater because all the criticism has them curious or because they're making a conscious decision to ignore the criticism. But at this point, who knows, really?

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars and Batman are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. And be sure to get a look at the latest page in my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold.

The Week In Geek: 3/16/16 - Never Too Many Daredevil Posts

Yesterday, the second season of Marvel's Netflix series, Daredevil, happened. Since I had the day off and I needed something to discuss today, I got up early and binged the whole goddamned thing in a day while I cleaned around the house and got drunk. I'll admit that I was a little worried at first that the show might lose a little bit of fire in the belly since the showrunners seemed to go for broke right out of the gate in Season 1.

First and foremost, Jon Bernthal was pitch perfect as the Punisher or, as I think of him, Who I See Myself As When I Play The Division. Though there have been some good portrayals (despite being in heinously bad movies) over the years, Bernthal has Frank Castle down so well, it's actually a little unsettling to watch. In the first season, the Kingpin was mainly a behind-the-curtain type of villain for the first episodes where we didn't get to see much of him for a while. Season 2 blatantly has no time for that shit. This time around, they get right down to business, throwing us right in the middle of Hell's Kitchen becoming a pot ready to boil over thanks to the new "hero" in town. Punisher's body count in any one episode resemble Steph Curry's season average. The fight scenes are twice as brutal as the first season. Last year, there were a lot of parallels drawn between Daredevil and Batman (the Nolan version) when the show premiered. Clearly, Marvel wanted desperately to distance one character from the other since we're a week away from Dawn of Justice because this season puts Matt Murdock through twice the shit he went through physically last time.

Character development was a bit more interesting. Karen Page definitely evolved from "step into harm's way constantly" to "stepping into harm's way for a good reason or at least good intentions." She's learned a thing or two from being around two friends who are entirely capable of handling themselves despite not being conventional tough guys (as far as she knows). For a show that borrow so heavily from Frank Miller (who has always been trash with writing women), this is a vast improvement. Foggy Nelson develops into someone with a little more personal agency once he realizes his blind best friend isn't exactly the handicapped person he thought he knew in Season 1. He blithely throws himself into some wildly dangerous scenarios without thinking it all the way through, but you feel his need to prove he can handle things on his own since his good looking, confident, silver tongued partner has essentially abandoned him. Even Claire Temple is basically just trying to either a). keep her job, b). DO her job or c). give the main character what they need so they'll get the fuck out of her face so she can get back to keeping/doing her job. You can watch each one of these characters play out their particular issues and be perfectly entertained without looking at your watch, waiting for Daredevil to fly through a window beat the unholy shit out of everyone....though that is usually a plus. The Elektra storyline doesn't have as much emotional resonance as the Punisher plot does, but it's still very well developed and wrapped up about as neatly as could be expected. Scott Glenn is still an absolute godsend as Stick. There simply isn't a single scene that isn't that much better because he's in it. Also....DAREDEVIL VS. NINJAS!!!

Will there be a third season? This series certainly deserves one, but with Iron Fist happening and The Defenders soon after, I could imagine there's some uncertainty as to when they'd get to churn out another Daredevil season. Of course, that was the case with the first season and we were promptly gifted with another, so we'll see.

My comic review for the week on Superman: American Alien

as well as my article on the upcoming Black Panther comic series are both up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your reading enjoyment. Feel free to like, comment or share your leisure.

Also, we're back with part 2 of Chapter 1 of our ongoing fantasy webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. So, definitely check that out.

The Week In Geek 3/9/2016

It's been a while since I've done This Week In Superhero Television and it's seems like good time to catch up now that most of the shows worth talking about are on break at the moment.

As it stands, The Flash might still be some of the most compelling comic based television right now. The absolute best thing about this show is that it's not about to embrace its own hamfisted insanity. Usually, shows go to absolute shit when they start fucking with time travel and parallel dimensions, but Flash full on owns it in a way reminiscent of the strong points of Lost (the strong points it actually had). Delving into Earth 2 has been major fun and Zoom has been enigmatic to the point of ridiculousness and hilarity. Also, I feel obligated to point out that Jesse L. Martin has been a powerhouse as Joe West, superhero father of the decade. The way he doesn't allow himself to be overwhelmed with all the sensational superpowers and whatnot is refreshingly human almost in a Jim Gordon sort of way. I also have to applaud the writers for at least TRYING

Meanwhile, Arrow is still trying to atone for the sins of last season but it's a long way back to the top. For one thing, the Arrowverse is trying its damnedest to make Diggle a relevant character again by introducing his evil brother Itachi...I mean Andy. John trying to make what's left of his family whole again is a noble effort to re-establish him as the moral compass of thais show. And, MY GOD, does Arrow ever need a moral compass? Because TV Oliver Queen, being a Batman surrogate and all, is a great superhero but a dreadful man. And to my great dismay, Felicity Smoak has become just as bad thanks to the writing team. She used to be such a steadfast, grounded figure, but now her plotlines have mainly devolved into her crying over things that really don't deserve the tears. When Oliver admitted that the only way he was allowed to see his son was to keep him a secret, Felicity was fully aware that her fiance was placed in an impossible situation and walked out on him as he sent his son away for his own safety (since he'd been kidnapped by his nemesis and all). Now, sure, he could have told Felicity without anyone knowing, but a person trying to be a better man openly lying to the mother of his only child for his girlfriend is still asking a lot. It's the entire problem they keep creating with her character: "I know you were faced with an impossible, no-win situation where anyone else would have folded, but goddamnit, what about ME?" It borderlines on the stereotypical nagging wife of an old 50's sitcom.

As for Legends of Tomorrow, I actually haven't watched the show since the pilot episode and I'm not entirely sure if I intend to try. It's great that the Arrowverse is stretching its legs and trying things, but this particular attempt is just too much. The strong points are all there. The show is basically going to live and die off of the return of Sarah Lance, The Doct....I mean, Rip Hunter and Wentworth Miller's amazingly ridiculous performance as Captain Cold. But there were just too many problems to ignore right from the start. For one thing, I'm used to Hawkman being characterized as an asshole. But for fuck's sake, he proposed beating Hawkgirl up to settle a dispute. Also, he's supposed to be Egyptian and is as lily white as Ron Howard (as is Vandal Savage). Also, there's the matter of Professor Martin Stein giving his other half of the Firestorm matrix a date rape roofie to make him come on the trip to stop Savage. I won't even touch that.

"Where's the black guy, though?"

My comic review for The Mighty Thor is available on Black Nerd Problems for viewing enjoyment. Feel free to like, comment and share as you see fit.

Maybe We Don't Have to Be THAT Hard On Marvel

So, the story lately in the comic world has been how The Big Two's sales are down lately and everyone has their various opinions on why that is because fanboys. It's pretty much standard operating procedure to howl endless platitudes about how mainstream comics are coming to an end as we know it or whatever. The main complaint is that DC is changing their characters too much, and "he doesn't look like MY Batman" and basically everything change averse readers over 40 would whine about no matter what. And honestly, things over there aren't as bad as comic retailers would have you believe. I mean, Batman is still going strong, Superman is shaky but Superman has been shaky since before the New 52 reboot and Green Lantern has a strong premise going but Robert Venditti is just no Geoff Johns. Also, Justice League, Midnighter, Doctor Fate and Black Canary are all really strong titles that are just not getting enough press because it's cool to hate DC.

The complaint that bothers me the most actually comes from Marvel readers, though. Now, granted...it's only fair to say that Marvel DID kinda shit the bed by launching their rebooted universe before finishing the event that causes the the universe to be rebooted in the first place. And it was a bit annoying that Secret Wars was an 8 issue event that started in early Spring 2015 and didn't end until early 2016, but this All New All Different Marvel isn't as gagworthy as people are making it out to be. The main gripe seems to be that the House of Ideas seems to be throwing way too many titles at the wall to see what sticks. But the truth is THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. A year ago, the complaint was that they were so busy gender/race bending old characters, they weren't focusing on pushing existing non binary characters. Now, we have them trying out books like "Silk" (which is, in fairness, bad....last time I checked, anyway), The Ultimates, an almost completely non binary team of Avengers, David Walker writing a Power Man/Iron Fist team up book to get readers acquainted with the former Heroes for Hire before their respective Netflix shows debut. These are things that deserve mention. G. Willow Wilson's writing on Ms. Marvel has easily been some of the best in the business, redefining the superhero genre for young millenials. All New Hawkeye, though aiming a little higher than Matt Fraction's strictly everyman approach, has maintained its status as a fun, sometimes heartwarming character study of a guy who's good at being a hero and not as great at being a person. Bendis is doing compelling work on Invincible Iron Man, depicting a less morose Tony Stark trying his hand at having a normal life while facing abnormal problems. And I shouldn't even have to explain the importance of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

It's easy to get caught up in the problems, but it's important to mark the interesting things happening over at Marvel right now because there's a reawakening of the confidence in the industry to try some different things that run the risk of sucking. Or we can just go back to have ten X-Men titles and five Wolverine books. I know we all love that shit. Just thinking out loud. 

My comic review of David Walker's Cyborg is up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment.

The Week In Geek 2/10/26: Live From Gamer Prom

So, This Week In Games I'm Obsessed With....As a follow up to my article on the closed beta for The Division, I feel compelled to tell you that the rumors of an open beta have finally been confirmed. XBox One jumped the gun and announced it last week and now Ubisoft confirmed it this week. The open beta is supposedly going to include additional content as well as address some of the issues people complained about in the first beta. For one thing, there's going to be more non-player enemies in the Dark Zone for the people that complained there weren't enough challenges unless you went down certain streets or in certain buildings. In fairness, I don't think the developers wanted to overwhelm noobs like myself with Death waiting for you around every corner, but I completely understand that you have to demonstrate that there's going to be enough content to keep the hardcore gamers entertained. After all, the first thing The Overachievers Who Apparently Don't Have Jobs complained about was tearing through all the available content in a matter of hours. Honestly, I think complaining about not getting the whole game in a BETA is the equivalent of watching a movie trailer and being upset you didn't get the whole film, but I realize that this is Ubisoft's core audience and that they have a hard time keeping them happy without being problematic, so with that in mind, the side eyes are reasonable. All in all, I'm looking forward to going back into the Dark Zone to shoot trolls in the face and steal their shit next week. 

The various updates are as follows:  

This Week In Destiny.....The much debated MMOFPS had its first Valentine's Day event, Crimson Days (I affectionately refer to it as Shooter Prom Night). If you're one of these people I'm meeting lately who doesn't play as much as you used to, you're probably wondering if it's worth getting into before it ends Tuesday. In that instance, the primary question to ask in this case is "Did it satiate players who have been salivating for new content?"

Answer: Eh.

Well, if you're exclusively a PvE player (which, apparently, is a thing), you're essentially fucked until Bungie gives us this big expansion which is slated for "eventually" in 2016. For you PvP folks, you get the 2v2 deathmatch known as Crimson Doubles. Well, first off, it's actually sort of fucking hard and I don't even mean that from a noob's perspective because I feel like I've gotten pretty goddamned good at this game. I mean that, given the nature of Destiny's PvP and the overall pacing that comes with this level of shooter, it's conceptually difficult. It's a lot like the 3 on 3 Trials of Osiris except you don't have an extra person there to revive fallen Guardians while you shoot opponents. If your teammate is dead, it's essentially 2 on 1 and you're possibly fucked. Fortunately, my Shooter Prom date is effectively a "tank" and has no problems with taking one shotgun against two +300 light Guardians, thirsty for good drops. As far as drops go, you're pretty likely to get either some Year One/Early Year Two items or some Valentine themed ghost shells that carry some pretty "meh" light numbers. The hot commodity is some ghost shell that 320 light, but if Twitter is any indication, you have to log an assload of hours to get it. As someone who has clocked a LOT of time in the Crucible, I'm here to tell you that's a lot of time to spend in some "sweaty" hardcore matches for possibly one Holy Grail item and some items that are just nice to have. And this is what Destiny becomes when Bungie goes a bizarre amount of time without new content or communicating when you will have new content available: the accumulation of stuff. It's Farmville meets Halo. But I'm okay with that because I like Farmville and I like Halo.

Does it solve the content problem? Not really. Is it an assload of fun? Yeah. Does it add to the world building, mythology aspect of the game universe? Absolutely....and I think that counts for something. So, there's that.

My comic review this week for Batman is available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. Feel free to like, share and comment as you see fit as usual.

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. 

The Week In Geek 1/6/16

This Week In Star Wars (in case you're not sick of me talking about Star Wars yet)....I was scrolling through io9 and I saw yet another article listing all of the "minor" issues with The Force Awakens which, no offense to io9 in particular, has gotten goddamned annoying. The most annoying thing is that, since Force Awakens has been so well received and is well on its way to beating Avatar in worldwide sales (meaning there's nothing to justify an article on what sucks about it), every article you read has to preface it with, "Don't get me wrong...we like this movie, but..." in the same way racists start racist comments with, "Look, I don't want to sound racist, but..." Because outside of Star Wars, the week or so after New Year's is slow news in geekdom and the usual suspects need some shit to talk about.

In this very same week, JJ Abrams was on a podcast where he gave a very reasonable explanation for the naysayer who whine about the movie being a remake of A New Hope. First of all, he shouldn't have and, quite frankly, didn't have to do that if you ask me (I'm going to say that if you're reading my blog in the first place, that counts as you asking me). For one thing, there's the inevitability that if you keep feeling the need to justify your work, you'll say something stupid that will eventually end up as comedic fodder like when Max Landis said he wanted to make American Alien the opposite of AllStar Superman (I'm assuming by "the opposite", he meant "bad" because that's what's happened so far) or when Zack Snyderclaimed to have saved Watchmen from Terry Gilliam or whatever. Furthermore, we all know that, no matter what they say, directors and writers totally listen to the fans. Even the trolls. We know this, but it just looks bad when said creators actually respond because, ultimately, NEVER have these statements ever shut fanboys up no matter how thought out they are. Never. Zack Snyder has responded to Man of Steel criticisms for ages now and yet MoS is STILL the most divisive movie every in the genre. It doesn't even work in politics. Donald Trump could get on the stump tomorrow and claim that Jeb! Bush is a holocaust denier and Jeb! could say something logical and reasonable like, "I'm not responding to nonsensical, unfounded allegations. Let's talk about the issues." Despite this being a completely mature, rational way to respond to a Presidential candidate whose entire political strategy is based around lying and flinging gargoyle shit at the other candidates, odds are good that we would still ridicule him and call him "low energy" or whatever else Trump has convinced him he is. It's not that we want to believe something Donald Trump says. We don't. We know that, in all likelihood, it isn't true. But the fact that Bush is so visibly wounded, you can tell it affects him. Even when he's not directly addressing it, he's addressing it and, ultimately, dignifying the comments. Put simply, JJ Abrams, at this juncture, should just not be dignifying these things that are only being discussed just because the nerd blogosphere needs some shit to talk about. Also, I'm not a director/producer worth millions of dollars or anything, but if MY movie were holding solid at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, io9 and anyone else who has anything to say about it could go fuck themselves no matter how well intentioned their "think piece" is. But that's just me, so....

My comic review for the week on Invincible Iron Man is up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Outside of that, I may get a little inconsistent with the blog reviews since I just moved a PS4 into my house and will be playing unhealthy amounts of Destiny for both self-care and research purposes. Yes, I heard what I just said. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. Yes, I still mean it. That is all.

The Week In Geek 12/30/15

This Week In Things Too Geeky To Discuss With Your Friends.....No matter how you feel about Star Wars: The Force Awakens (sorry, but I'd be happy if my movie had a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes), you have to admit it's nice to have the nerd community geeking out about Star Wars again in a less abstract, fan fictiony way. It's also nice that the introduction of John Boyega's rogue trooper character, Finn, has created a reinvigorated sense of community within the Star Wars blerd fandom. I was personally getting tired of debating over Samuel L. Jackson no matter how awesome it was that he repelled an entire enemy platoon singlehandedly. My favorite thing is that, since Star Wars is a very self sustaining marketing engine that responds to its fans, you end up getting cool shit like this action figure based on everyone's favorite electro baton wielding stormtrooper. 

He wasn't a huge part of the initial marketing campaign, but after the movie released and the internet lost their shit (though I still don't understand why...I mean, he lasted for half a lightsaber fight). Now, the movie is barely two weeks old, ready to surpass Titanic sales and now he has his own action figure. He doesn't even have a name but he has an action figure. Disney wastes no time.

And the amount of detail that goes into this universe is ridiculously geeky. Nerds....we have a cross section book. My relationship with bookstores over the years has left me privy to some wildly geeky shit, but after all this time, sci-fi cross section books still stand firm in my pantheon of the geekiest shit a human being can purchase in public in front of other people. I mean, it's basically an automotive manual for vehicles that don't actually exist. Neil Degrasse Tyson is basically America's wacky Science Uncle and even he isn't THAT geeky. Isn't it fucking awesome?  

This Week In Wonderfully Nerdy Women That Don't Know I Exist.... Readers, there is simply not a higher note to start the year on than talking about Ariell Johnson, the sister from Philly who is opening up her own comic shop. The idea behind Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse is to build a sense of community in the Kensington part of Philly around two things that a). get blerds through the day and b). are both not Meek Mill: comics and coffee. It feels like the next logical step, given that the past couple of years in the industry have really been focused on creating more conversations about diversity in comics as well as the way geekdom treats women. The fact that safe spaces are happening on a physical level as well as a conversational one is an exciting prospect and a wonderful omen for the possibilities of things to come in the blerd community.