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Category: Comics

Da-Da Da-Da Da-Da Da-Da Da-Da Dead Man!

Yeah, that was tasteless.

I’m actually fairly bummed about “The Dark Knight,”  It was WAY too good.   Far too good.  If it had been less of a film; the craft of it less so.  I could have walked away and just said, “Another Batman flick, good stuff!” maybe swanned on about the effects and the characters.  Aaron Eckhart was great as Harvey Dent, The Ken Doll DA of Gotham; his fate sealed on film.  Christian Bale flexed and burned on film, with a clean line between “Bruce” and “The Bat”  Maggie Gyllenhaal did her best to make want her to die on film.  And Heath Ledger?  You mean, THE JOKER?  Well, Heath has pretty much defined the film version of the Joker.  It will take a RADICAL re-imagining to take the Joker to anything higher than the bar set in this film.

However, I have strayed from my point.

The film was too good.  So it was tragic.

Alas, that is the essense of REAL Art, isn’t it.  Art is fleeting and all else is commerce.  Now we get a “Joker” on film who really lives up to the Joker from “The Killing Joke” a moralist with no consience or heart.

All for just 152 minutes.  Those last 152 min are the best.

Yeah, Well I got a big Rocky FIST! *Smashes Troll*

If you’ve been under a rock and you’re not a member of the Extended Troll or Fairy family then you’ve been at least periferally aware that they made a movie where the Son of the Devil is the hero; and it doesn’t feature one song by Dio OR SlayerQ’uell Suprise!

Yup, your faithfull blogger has been to see a movie in an actual theatre with real people and a screen and everything.  A Chain theatre.  Let me go off on a tangent for a moment to fill you with the type of terror I was filled with when I sat in said Chain Theatre.  The SCREEN WAS NOT FILLED WITH PICTURES WHEN WE ARRIVED!!!! DUMM DUMM DUMM DUMMM!  The screen was about 7/8 filled with the ads and previews.  That’s it.  AND IT WAS BLURRY!!!! WOOOOOOooooooo!  Scary stuff, huh?  At Nine Buck a pop it was.  I was so worked up about it that if the screen had not become filled with sharp previews a full 10 minutes after we had arrived, I would have become PERTURBED!  Please consider this tangent complete, save this one point.  The “Dark Knight” line was empty.  There are enough nerds in London to justify two comic stores in walking distance from each other downtown, and they are neither of them failing, one had to move to a bigger location recently.  In a town that can support two busy comic stores SO CLOSE THAT THEY COULD TOUCH WEINERS, there should have been a line for The Dark Knight.  I think that says more about the Theater than the town.

Anyway, the Son of Satan is back with another hit and now he is not tethered by David Hyde Pierce!  We get all the Abe Sapien goodness with some heavy Hellboy asskicking; while Selma Blair pouts, looks cute but mixes it up as much as a woman in her condition should.  Now at this point you are saying to yourself, why is Kevin getting down on the Crazy?  Crazy heroes are the best!  I mean, Ambush Bug, the Creeper, CandleJack  the list goes on and on.  But hold on, I’m not getting down on the Crazy.  I love the Crazy and it’s twin the Zany.  They are not at issue.  I’m just saying that the action is great, the fights are awesome and even the wire-fu is weighty and meaty instead of fairy light and tepid.

Speaking of the Wire Fu.  Why does the clearly “European” Elf even know that particular type of wire-fu.  I could have accepted Savate or some kind of acrobatic fencing, but Kung-Fuy with a halbred?  C’Mon.  Not that the fighting was bad, but I half expected him to yell KeeeeyAAAAAA! Go Elf Prince and so on.

As for the Drama, the relationships on screen were great, there’s a great “guy” moment between Hellboy and Abe that has to be seen to be understood and Seth Mcfarlane does himself proud as the character with all the substance of a really good beer fart.

So, Yeah.  You should go see HellBoy 2; it’s GREAT.  Better than the first one by MILES!

The Ret-Con Continues

While Spidey is giving Jameson the Kiss of Life, the Spider-Man comics still continue their mad dash for crap-tacular!

I’m just not digging on the curent plot lines, it IS a nice change from Spidey seeing his wife banging Lobster man on the side, but only in as much as it isn’t as horrifying. I’m not enjoying seeing 20-something Peter Parker waffle from place to place with no real anchor or center to work around. It’s just not as much fun without a home life for him, you know?

The Unlimited Spider-Man should be the proving ground for Single Spider, not the mainline stories. It seems, however, that the Ultimate universe is mired in “here’s what’s happened already, compressed into a few years” so that newer readers come into line with long term readers.

Add to all of this the “Villain of the Week” line of rogues that have been popping up and Spider-Man has undergone a pointless reboot with no end in sight. Hurry up and undo this stupid reboot and get things back on track Marvel, please?

Are you going to see "Wanted" this week?

Suddenly, the old characters seem pretty old. Timur really raised the bar here. Batman better be really, really good to top this.

Mark Millar (writer of WANTED the graphic novel and mad scotsman) speaking about WANTED the movie

I’ve seen this kind of effusive praise from Mr. Millar about “WANTED” for the past couple of days, having already decided to give the movie a look either way, this excites me to see it.  As the writers of source material in comic movies almost universally hate the end result when their comics become film.

Not that every comic movie has been bad either, even the bad ones were okay in many cases.  (Captain America, with the rubber ears, BAD.  Spider-man with the ropes for webs, GOOD for the time, BAD in the scope of things).  The X-Men movies aren’t all good, but they have their moments, which makes up for the stupid stunts like “I’m the Juggernaut, Bitch”.  I don’t think I need to list all the comic movies off for you to have a few in the good and a few in the bad columns in your head.  Nevertheless, Wanted was one of those Comics that was MADE to be a movie and DRAWN to have the casting in place.  Which makes this adaption worrisome and now also exciting.

So, are you going to head to the theatre this weekend to see the R rated violence, or what?

It's Commander Rick!

Some judicious Google video searches led me to some Prisoners of Gravity episodes online:

For the uninitiated, the young, the vain or the American; Prisoners of Gravity was THE genre fiction discussion program from the 80s to early 90s (it followed me through High School guaranteeing that I would never be “cool” at my rural high school). If you were a fan of any kind of Genre ficiton of any sort, with comics and sci-fi as a preference then Prisoners of Gravity was your mecca. I remember being excited when Commander Rick would interview the Cyberpunk luminaries like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (The Difference Engine) and authors like Alan Moore (Judge Dredd) or Neil Gaiman (Black Lotus).

I strongly encourage you (if you are a fan) to check out “Prisoners of Gravity” online at google video and enjoy what us kids in the know (and not americans) were able to enjoy way back when.

I know those were their less famous works, which is why I chose them.

Warren Ellis would be spinning in his grave

N.J. Senate Candidate: Frank Gannett (He Died in 1957) Backs My Candidacy

“The Founder of Gannett, Frank Gannett, would whole-heartedly endorse my campaign to Legalize Freedom,” Sabrin said in a statement. “Frank was one of the Founders of ‘The National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government’ and ran for President on the same platform as The Sabrin Solution.”

Warren Ellis had this same thing showing up in Transmetropolitain (Senator Longmarch (D)ead endorsed the Smiler from the grave) it was just as unseemly when an artificial Necromancy went down. This is REALLY distasteful.

How about a nice Bat Baby?

Bat & Baby

Can you believe this? I think it was meant to be a “cute” post script to the whole Scarecrow Origin (what with the Zombies and the Crow Death) but it comes off WAY creepier than the rest of the story.

Robin picks up the kid and hands her to Batman then hugs him close around his bicep and asks if he’d like his own kid?

Woah.

Now we know that Batman has reproduced with the Daughter of the Demon and produced a kind of “Mini-Batman” child (who is magically better than anyone he comes against) This scene is kind of innocuous, but it is at least as odd as the “I’m the god damn Batman!” scene from the Frank Miller “All-star” series.

Hmm?

I am the Red Hulk

Okay, I admit it; I am the Red Hulk!
Shocking
I have been the Red Hulk for only a short while though! I’m still getting used to the Transformations and Red Eyes thing; when I get some Gamma Strength Visene I should be fine!

Have you been following the new Hulk Story? First he was “The Worldbreaker” then “The Warbound” now there is a new Hulk (who is apparently evil and angry) rolling around killing off Hulk’s enemies (and making Rick Jones into A-Bomb (a new Abomination).

The Red Hulk reads like an Evil Mr. Fixit or “All together Hulk” from the Pantheon story lines.

World War Hulk was a fair capper to the Civil War story that was “kind of Excellent” and “kind of Pointless”. But since Marvel hasn’t already retconned said “it was all a dream, lol” the whole thing yet; I think we can assume that at some point in the near future we will find out that Iron Man/Captain America was a Skrull the whole time and that we’re close to a big reveal.

At least it was more satisfying than the end of “Final Crisis” what a hullabaloo to kill off a bunch of Off-Earth second-string Characters. Even Darkseid was kind of a “far off menace” monster.

So, yeah, Red Hulk. IYAMREDHULK!

no I’m not, seriously