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July 27, 2005
The drought of summer games
During this annual “dry season” where video game makers hold back their big guns for the fall, I’ve been buying cheap PS2 games that I was sorry to let go: Hot Shots Golf 3, FreekStyle, SSX Tricky, and Downhill Domination. I got them all for $10 or less. I think my favorite of all of these is Downhill Domination. There’s something about the idea of falling, falling, falling that makes Downhill and SSX so damn appealing. The SSX Tricky game has a level designed like a pinball game that I missed. Crazy, I know, but I'm thinking of keeping the PS2 and XBox when the new consoles come out, and I'll have my own little game museum.
I read a news item over on IGN that Best Buy has free demo discs of the upcoming Burnout Revenge. I took a quick trip over and I was lucky to find a few of these discs left; most of the PS2 copies had disappeared. It has one track but it’s really cool, with ramps and the ability to smash into normal cars going in the same direction. I think it’s a must have game for racing fanatics.
Madden NFL 2006 is coming out on August 9th, and I’ve actually pre-ordered a copy. This is something I’m doing in a mad hazy spin over the drought, because I don’t even like football all that much, but it has so much content for a cheap price: $37.00 with shipping, no tax. Where did I get this fabulous deal? Over on EBay, where a seller called UtahAuctions often sells new games and consoles at discounted prices. I don’t get any kickbacks from this guy, either. He sold me a Sony PSP at well below the listed price.
Another game I am picking up on EBay is Midnight Club 3. It got dinged on the reviews because of the load times, but I got this at less than $50, so I can’t wait to try it.
Over on Yahoo Games, they have a new video show called Reset, and the first Episode features a sneak peek at NBA Live 2006, SSX: On Tour (another must have, it looks great), and NFL Madden 2006. This is a great overview of all three games with impressions from various game magazine editors, and it’s hosted by Kat Hunter. Nuff said.
Posted by Kid Flash at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)Nerdy News for July 27, 2005
Loads of Infinite Crisis news bytes today: Rich Johnston reported a terrific spoiler about what happens to Batman during the One Year Gap. Apparently Bruce Wayne will be locked up in Arkham Asylum and Dick Grayson will take over as Batman. In the meantime, the Nightwing comic continues, but who is Nightwing? The Onion A.V. Club has an interview with Geoff Johns and several of the questions are related to Infinite Crisis. Dan Didio gives us the low down on “52”, a weekly comic that will tell stories about what happened during the One Year Gap. It will have rotating teams of writers/artists telling stories of various heroes and what they did during that missing year. One retailer is already upset about having to order eight issues of this book in advance without knowing if it sucks or not. Update: Greg Rucka has an interview about "Sacrifice", running through all of this month's Superman titles and concluding in Wonder Woman 219. Rucka calls this story arc "OMAC 3.5", as it takes place between issues 3-4, and says, "...we tried very hard to build OMAC so that you weren’t obligated to buy anything else, and we failed."
In non-Crisis news, there’s a rumor that Grant Morrison may team up with Jim Lee on a Wildcats revival. It’s not tremendously exciting to me. Wildcats have had James Robinson, Alan Moore, and Joe Casey as writers, but the characters and their raison d'etre don’t interest me all that much. The best character ever to come out of the series was Tao. I am sure Lee wants to revive his own property instead of drawing another DCU character. Warren Ellis has been posting on his “Bad Signal” email list for some time about the “fight comic” he’s been planning for Marvel. He’s been thinking about the nature of superheroes and how their story structure revolves around the Big Fight. The name of his “fight comic” will be called NextWave and it features C-list characters like Machine Man, Boom Boom, Photon (or Black Captain Marvel), etc. It sounds a bit kooky and hilarious, maybe it will be the new Damage Control. Nuff said.
Posted by Adam Warlock at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)July 26, 2005
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price
I arrived fairly late to the world of Harry Potter. I had written off this series as kid stuff, judging the books by their cover and their publisher, Scholastic. A friend of mine who is a voracious reader told me that the reason why Harry was so popular was that adults read the books as much as kids did—if not more! By the time I started reading, four books in the series had been published, and once I started to read them, I had completely succumbed to the magic. Spoilers abound in this review, so if you haven't read the book yet, you are fairly warned.
I haven’t been read too many novels in the past few months. Video games, work, television, the Internet, and the Sony PSP have taken up all of my free time. Now with the penultimate book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
Chapter 2 is the most alarming chapter in almost any Potter book to date, and it makes the reader want to fly through the rest of the novel. In a dreary muggle neighborhood we find Professor Snape meeting Narcissa (mother of Draco) and Bellatrix, allies of Voldermort. Previously we’ve seen that Snape is a mysterious figure. Though an expert practitioner of the Dark Arts, Dumbledore has repeatedly claimed that Snape is on the side of good. In this chapter it appears that Snape has fallen back in league with Voldermort and answers all of Bellatrix’s questions. Why did he not join with Voldermort immediately after the Dark Lord’s revival? Why has he not killed Harry Potter after five years at Hogwarts? Snape answers all of these questions and furthermore makes an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco fulfill Voldermort’s plans. Rowling plays this chapter in a sneaky way: the point of view belongs to Narcissa and partially Bellatrix. We see what Snape is doing, we hear Snape state his intentions, but we don’t have privy to his innermost thoughts, another layer of mystery that we can’t wait to uncover. The film version of Half Blood Prince will have to be marvelous with Alan Rickman getting more delicious screen time in the role of Snape.
After Chapter 2, Rowling returns to her traditional structure: we see Harry at the Dursley’s (though there is no accident this time), Harry reunites with his surrogate family (Ron and Hermione), returns to Hogwarts, struggles with his classes until the end of the school year, when he confronts a number of adversaries. By the time we get to the end of the book, Hogwarts is changed forever and Rowling teases the reader with the thought that Harry might not even return for his final year of school. Voldermort never appears in the current timeline of the story, but we see him in a variety of flashbacks, courtesy of the Pensieve, a sort of Holodeck that plays back various memories that Dumbledore has collected. We see how Voldermort’s mother met his father, Tom Riddle. Riddle was a Muggle, making the various taunts about Mudbloods even more gut-wrenching because it’s all self-loathing. There have been many parallels suggested about Harry and Voldermort, and we see another one here, that both are orphans, mistreated in their Muggle homes, until Dumbledore summons them to Hogwarts. I’ve often thought that Harry’s orphanage makes him a classic hero in the mold of Superman and Batman, two heroes who do great things to uphold their parents’ memory. We see that Voldermort is almost Harry’s dark polar opposite. Rowling makes us empathize with Voldermort to a certain extent. We can feel sorrow for Voldermort’s predicament until he really turns evil and murders his Muggle born father.
Hagrid is a background character this time around, as the kids are too busy to take his Magical Creatures class. The main characters driving the book are Harry, Snape, Voldermort, Dumbledore, and Draco, who is mostly conspicuous because of his absence until the very end. Harry falls out of puppy love with Cho Chang and in real love with Ginny Weasley, Ron’s sister. Ron and Hermione provide interesting diversions and add to the soap opera elements. And the new Potions instructor, Professor Slughorn, makes every ass-kisser you’ve ever known seem pale in comparison. Snape finally becomes the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and he furthers his relationship with Harry in a way that gets discovered at the very end of the book. I don’t believe that Snape is evil at all. I think he has tried to help Harry by exposing his laziness. Harry has never been a very good student at Hogwarts. He’s cheated in various classes and utterly failed at Occlumency (closing the mind to telepathy), which led to the death of Sirius Black in book five. Snape hammers all of Harry’s weaknesses in the end, reminding him why he has no chance against Voldermort unless he becomes a better wizard. Harry will either have to improve or depend on Hermione for the knowledge to overcome his enemies.
When the as Half Blood Prince ends, you feel that book seven can’t arrive quickly enough, as this promises the mother of all magical battles. I am sure the earliest that this can arrive is 2007; perhaps we might have to wait as long as 2008. I bet the book reading public hasn’t been this captivated since Dickens serialized Great Expectations. When it does to come out, I imagine I will be so excited that I will have to read it in one day. Until then, Potter has rekindled my desire to read fiction, and I am currently reading Godplayers
JK Rowling interviews on the Half Blood Prince:
The Leaky Cauldron, 4-part interview.
July 17, 2005
Nerdy News for San Diego Comic Con 2005 Day 4
San Diego Comic-Con 2005 is over and no big announcements of what DC will be like post-Crisis 2. The Superman rumblings were enough to tell us something will change but we are not quite sure what. We do get the impression that Superman Returns will probably kick ass from such people as Jim Lee on the blue tights site. The biggest DC news after the Spirit-Cooke deal is that Mark Waid is now exclusive. He’ll be a consulting editor and bringing back the Brave and the Bold team-up series. I found this quote from Waid to be tantalizing: “Clearly, the post-Infinite Crisis DCU is designed to be a much different landscape than what we’ve got now...this is your travelogue of the new DC Universe.” I wonder if Crisis 2 will be the opposite of Crisis 1. Will it pull apart DC’s heroes into separate universes? When I read Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers mini-series, I definitely get the feeling this is a brand new universe where the characters are re-imagined.
For the best DC Universe news summary, take a look over here at Comics Continuum’s coverage. Likewise, they have an excellent Marvel summary here as well. The biggest surprise that Marvel had at the con is that Moon Knight is returning in a series by Avengers artist David Finch and fiction writer Charlie Huston. Other than that, I see them mangling more characters than ever.
The coolest news I’ve seen is the Justice League Unlimited panel recap at the Continuum. JLU will continue for another season with all the villains gathering in one super-sized Legion of Doom. Hawkman and the Legion of Super-Heroes will make appearances. The Legion is another one of those gems that DC could really capitalize on in animation. Nuff said.
Posted by Kid Flash at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)July 15, 2005
Nerdy News for San Diego Comic Con 2005 Day 1
Day one of the San Diego Comic Con is over. While I am not there I feel like I am due to all the news reports coming in from various sites and blogs. The biggest news is the new Spirit ongoing series, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke. This is a huge surprise, and it’s going to be kicked off by a Batman/Spirit one-shot, co-written by Jeff Loeb. I think only a few people could do the Spirit justice, and besides Alan Moore or Frank Miller, Cooke is the perfect choice. I am intrigued by his decision to update the series, bringing the Spirit into the 21st century, and giving his girlfriend Ellen thigh-high boots. It’s a bold choice. Cooke also wants to use modern computer technology to do new things with the Spirit “logo-forms” (as Moore called it).
Geoff Johns gives the low down on the new Green Lantern series over here. They explain the yellow impurity in the rings and tell us that junior GLs won’t have immunity over the color yellow. The inevitable Green Arrow reunion happens in GL#7. There’s an interesting hint that James Robinson may be coming back to revive more Golden Age characters.
I read a rumor somewhere the Geoff Johns will be writing a Superman title, and I bet dollars to doughnuts that Adam Kubert will draw it. That would be a good move. I recently picked up the last three issues of Superman by Mark Verheiden and Ed Benes. Pretty good superhero stuff, much better than the Jim Lee run, and Lois now looks like she could guest star on Baywatch. Everyone’s complaining that the OMAC tie-in is very slight, but I think these tidbits are making it a cohesive universe. Let’s just hope it really leads to something big.
Cap the day off with a peek at the new Thing series. Dan Slott’s a fan of Marvel Two In One and he wants this to be a light hearted title with lots of action. Greatness! Let’s hope Wundarr makes a guest appearance. Nuff said.
Posted by Kid Flash at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)July 13, 2005
It's Clobberin' Time!
I expected my title this week to reflect my righteous indignation over the Fantastic Four movie. Given the nearly universal dismal reviews I was prepared to be highly disappointed. I nearly thought of skipping the movie altogether and just waiting for the DVD (I certainly wish that I had done that with Elektra). But I found the Fantastic Four movie to be highly enjoyable and at the end I found myself even wanting to see it again! I’ll wait for the DVD in that case, but it’s something no Marvel fan would want to miss while it’s in the theaters.
Yes, the Fantastic Four movie is full of ludicrous plot-holes, dumb dialogue, and quick short-cuts to keep things rolling along. So were the early issues of the FF; in a way this movie resembles the tone of the first ten or twenty issues, where the Thing was more bumpy than rocky and Reed was not yet married to Sue. The movie cuts very quickly, introducing Reed, Ben, Sue, and Doom in the first ten minutes and explaining why they are going into outer space. Johnny gets introduced in the next five minutes. I think the heart and soul of the movie are Ben and Johnny, two characters that the film gets absolutely right. Michael Chiklis has the perfect personality to play Ben Grimm, and his agony into being transformed into a monster is well depicted. There’s a scene where his fiancée drops his wedding ring (never mind how she got to the bridge in the first place), and his inability to pick it up in his enormous hand is touching. In the comic, Johnny started out as a high school age kid, but he works much better as a guy in his twenties. I didn’t mind the fact that they made him a Tony Hawk type of dude who’s into snowboarding and dirt bikes (in addition to being a space shuttle pilot). The practical jokes and adversarial relationship between Johnny and Ben provide a lot of belly laughs.
The relationship between Ben and Sue is a bit more problematic. The screenwriters turned Sue into a scientist (of what, I’m not sure) and threw in a romantic triangle between Sue, Reed, and Doom. We know that Sue and Reed were lovers and broke up for some vague reason. A lot of the reviews that I read said that Reed was a milquetoast and a weak character; his arc through the movie is to transform into a stronger, more decisive leader. This could have been done in a better way, and perhaps there are some elements left to be explored in a sequel. While Jessica Alba isn’t convincing as a scientist, her role in being the “den mother” to Reed, Johnny, and Ben did work for me. The basic elements of Reed and Sue’s personalities seemed intact and the whole quartet just plays off each other wonderfully as they do in the comics.
The biggest disappointment in the film still has to be Dr. Doom. This should have been the greatest villain of all time. The screenwriters optimized the story of building up the FF and the main villain at the same time. In doing so, we no longer have a Von Doom who is the leader of a country and armed with vast technological resources to attack the FF (although the ending hints that this may happen in a sequel). Julian McMahon does a reasonable job showing that Doom is a real asshole. While it’s far from perfect, I think they did give Doom an even better reason to hate Reed Richards: Reed stole Doom’s girl and he made Doom lose a billion dollars by ruining his company’s reputation. This is far superior to the old “Reed messed up my chemistry experiment and now my face is scarred” origin story. It’s not great that Doom in the movie has power over electricity; he should instead be like Iron Man with lots of different weapons in his suit. That metallic exo-skeleton thing is lame. When Doom finally puts on the mask, it looks just like the comic, but the performance isn’t as powerful because we don’t see his lips moving. It might be more effective if his voice changed somehow, amplified by the mask.
On the whole, I think Fantastic Four is on par with the first X-Men movie, which was pretty light and breezy as well. It’s a fun movie without a lot of angst. Yes, we could riddle it with bullet holes for hours on end, but in the end I just get a kick out of watching "the First Family of superheroes" come to life on screen.
Posted by Adam Warlock at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)July 6, 2005
Time to stop collecting comics?
About every four months, I tell myself I need to stop collecting comics. This is happening with alarming frequency. My current collection has items from the 60s, 70s, but it’s mostly comprised of comics from the 80s and 90s. I put them in the traditional long white boxes, mostly bagged, with a few precious gems mylared. I have about 18 of the long boxes, 3 of the smaller boxes for the old Warren and Marvel monster magazines. This doesn’t count the bookshelf in the closet which holds an array of graphic novels, treasury editions, and fan magazines like Comic Book Artist. All of this resides inside a closet, in a room which doubles as my exercise room. Which means that wherever I move, I must have an extra room just dedicated to holding my comic collection?
My wife is pretty patient with me. She doesn’t demand that I stop collecting comics, although it would be pretty pleasant for her if I did. But I am starting to view my collection as a monster in the closet that I can no longer control. My habit has been to venture lightly into the closet after finishing my new comics. I place them in a pile on top one of the long white boxes. I say I will immediately alphabetize them and place them into the boxes, but I never do. Four months later, the pile of new comics is spilling everywhere, so I finally decide to integrate my collection. I pull out several of the long white boxes, because there is one box dedicated to just Flash comics, and I want them all in one place. I might get the urge to re-read “Terminal Velocity” in the middle of the night and I want to easily find all the issues. Likewise, JLA, Batman, JSA, and several other important series have their own boxes. Others just go into a box that I label “New 2005” because I can’t be anal about everything. This is another problem, because if a mini-series spawns multiple years, it’s hard to find them. I once had to dig thru six boxes just to piece the entire run of Planetary together. Lifting all of these boxes is no cakewalk for an aging boomer. I have to remind myself to use my legs or else I’ll hurt my back.
There is a pleasure in going through any of my boxes: I find gems that I had totally forgotten about. Just the other day I was thinking about Deathstroke from Teen Titans, wishing that I had those old comics. Then looking in my boxes I find Deathstroke #1 and various other issues. How great is that? Going through my JLA box, I find a couple of 100 page giants reprinting some classic Gardner Fox stories. Good thing I didn’t buy those $50 JLA archives. And then I find a JLA Elseworlds titled “JLA Created Equal” by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire. What the fuck, I had no memory that such a thing ever existed. I pick it up and it’s got fantastic Maguire art. The story is kitchy, about a virus that kills off all the Earth’s male population except for Superman and Luthor. It’s basically a gimmick to allow Maguire to draw bodacious babes in prestige format. Lots of great scenes involving Wonder Woman, who obviously wishes Superman would dump Lois and impregnate her instead. Zatanna’s fishnet stockings get a lot of show time as well (click to expand the pictures). They don’t deal with the obvious lesbianism that would have to erupt, but you might wonder if Brian K. Vaughn didn’t get an idea for Y: The Last Man after reading this. It’s a fun story, although Superman doesn’t bang all the super-chicks who look lustily at him page after page. It’s a cop-out as this would be his duty to humanity, don’t ya think?
This is one of the things that make me think I should stop collecting new comics. I’ve obviously forgotten 90% of what I’ve bought for 20-30 years, so digging through the boxes and re-reading them would be a series of archeological discoveries. I always told myself when I got old, I would “start with the A’s” and keep on reading. Maybe it’s finally that time. There are a few portentous signs of stopping points. Infinite Crisis is coming up—maybe I should collect through that milestone and stop. I’ll have a pretty good run from Crisis to Crisis. They can’t do anything that compelling afterward, that I haven’t already seen, right? Oh sure, I’ll get a few trades here and there, but the monthly payment to my retailer will end. I’ve tried this before and I couldn’t make it past a month. Sometimes I sold my collection just to re-buy certain items. But now I can’t handle the cost, the space, the lifting of the long whites. It can happen, it must happen, I must stop. I have the will power, just like Hal Jordan. Yeah, right. Nuff said.
Posted by Kid Flash at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)July 5, 2005
The Essentials of Luke Cage
I have a number of Marvel Essentials that I haven’t read yet: Thor Vol. 1-2, FF Vol. 1-3, Spidey Vol. 1-5. I’ve picked some up and regretted it so much when I saw them, I couldn’t bring myself to re-read the stories. One of them is Essential Luke Cage Power Man Volume 1 TPB
July 4, 2005
Them Boots Were Made For Walkin'!
Howdy pardners! I sure hope you’re celebratin’ July the 4th and havin’ a great time just like me and Joe Bob. We’re drinkin’ Miller beer startin’ around 11am, grillin’ burgers and dogs around 2pm, and then gettin’ in my rig (Betsy) and gunnin’ down those hippies comin’ back from Burning Man this evening. Yessirree, it’s a real American tradition over here in Northern Californy!
One of the things that irks my blog pardners is the success I’ve had every time I’ve posted. My little Daisy Duke poll was the most popular feature ever on this here site. And while I’ve always had a thang for Catherine Bach as Daisy, well, that little Ms. Jessica Simpson is winnin’ my heart over every time I see her muscular thighs in them short shorts. Now I just stumbled on this here video of Jessie singin’ “These Boots Are Made For Walkin”, that ol’ Nancy Sinatra song. Well, you can walk me over in them boots honey, if you’re dressed like that! Funny enough, this has been out for a couple of weeks, but I ain’t never paid no attention to it until I read this here story about Christian groups sayin’ that Ms. Simpson is “slutty” because she romps around in bikini while washin’ the General Lee! Heck, if it ain’t a god given right to wash cars in bikinis, then we wouldn’t have great thangs like Wild Things
Check out Jessica Simpson here, little doggies! These Boots Are Made For Walkin' video.
Posted by Cousin Dick at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
