Comic Book Movie Review – Justice League: Doom

Justice League:  Doom is the latest DC Animated release.  The story is loosely based on the Mark Waid written story “Tower of Babel,” that appeared in JLA #43-46.  This is also the last project that Dwayne McDuffie worked on before his untimely death last February.  Overall, the best thing about this movie is that it mostly reunited the voice cast from the Justice League cartoon.  Only mostly because Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern that is used instead of John Stewart, or Kyle Rayner, who was used in the comic.  That’s not to say that the story is bad, but I do have some issues with it, which I will get into after the break.  There are spoilers.

Justice League:  Doom

Directed by  Lauren Montgomery

Written by Dwayne McDuffie

Starring
Kevin Conroy as Batman
Tim Daly as Superman
Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman
Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern
Carl Lumbly as Martian Manhunter
Michael Rosenbaum as The Flash
Phil Morris as Vandal Savage

The Walking Recap – 2/26/12 – “18 Miles Out”

When we last left out merry band of survivors, there was much turmoil within the camp.  Shane was quite upset that Rick and Hershel had brought an injured person back to the farm, even though he was blindfolded.

This episode definitely upped the zombie killing action.  Which is good, because the previews for next week’s episode makes it seem like there won’t be many zombies.  But that’s next week.  Let’s talk about this week.  Finally, Rick and Shane come to blows, but then everything is okay.  Or, everything seems to be okay for now.  I’m not entirely certain if I like what’s going on with this Randal character.  Part of me likes the conundrum that he represents.  But, part of me doesn’t think that there really is much of a conundrum at all.  He began as an enemy, so it wouldn’t have been a big deal at all to just leave him to die.  But Rick showed his good side in bringing him back.  But now he knows that this guy knows Maggie, and can find the farm anyways.  So, now Rick is forced to consider killing him.  It just seems like the writers are really reaching for situations to put the characters in while they are at the farm.

The other focus of the episode was on Beth.  Which was a rehash of what Andrea went through.  And Andrea doesn’t really make sense here.  She didn’t try to die, and come through it knowing that she really wanted to live.  If it wasn’t for Dale, she would have gladly died in the CDC explosion at the end of Season 1.  But man, Andrea is such a bitch.  It’s like they’re trying to desperately find someone else to be an antagonist so that Shane is not the only one.

But even with my complaints, I still enjoyed this episode.  I do think it was better to focus on just a couple storylines, than trying to have something going on for every single character.

More detailed breakdown of the events in this episode are below the break.

End of Ages (of Apocalypse)

Man, this hurts to admit, but it’s been 17 years since the original Age of Apocalypse story.  The story’s driving himself to his senior year of high school now.  When it first happened, the AoA was a neat four-month jaunt that was a hell of a lot of fun.  But since its conclusion, Marvel really hasn’t known what to do with it.  They pulled a couple characters through at its conclusion, most notably Nate Grey, now appearing in New Mutants.  Occasionally the period gets some revisits, mainly for anniversary purposes.

But now, 17 years after the fact, Marvel is launching an ongoing Age of Apocalypse series.  Without anything that you might possibly have liked about the AoA.  You see, this isn’t the Age of Apocalypse that you knew back when Bishop was trying to undo the death of Charles Xavier at the hands of Legion.  No, that ship has sailed.  In fact, none of the remnants of any of the eight titles and two add-ons left have made it to this ongoing.  To put it in more solid terms, here:

Click for larger image.

The Age of Apocalypse was a story created to put the familiar characters of the X-World into unfamiliar situations.  The appeal was seeing these characters in a new light.  It was neat, sure, but very limited in that eventually you haved to undo it because the interest wears off.  Personally, I never got into the various revisits to the AoA because I felt that X-Men: Omega wrapped the whole deal up so well.  The timeline was fixed and even if it wasn’t, Jean Grey’s death at the hands of Havok meant that all the X-Men would get killed by nukes anyway.  A crappy end for a crappy world.

But this series is expecting you to come back to the world of the Age of Apocalypse, only without the Magneto-led X-Men that defined the original.  Because the intro issue killed off both Magneto and his wife Rogue.  So you’re left with various mutant-hating human characters (Trasks, Strykers, etc) along with de-powered Sabretooth and Jean Grey fighting Wolverine, who is now Apocalypse.  That’s your premise.

This series will not last 12 issues, mark my words.  And with it goes the final thralls of the Age of Apocalypse.  And good riddance, I say.  It should have been laid to rest when the original story ended in 1996.

eXaminations: 2/22/12, Part 2

Welcome back.  For this part, we’ll be looking at:

• Wolverine & the X-Men #5 & 6 in which Kitty gets all preggers…kind of.
• Wolverine & the X-Men #2 (of 5) in which Quentin Quire’s plan shows flaws.
• X-Factor #231 & 232 in which Madrox keeps on his death-inducing reality hops.
• X-Men #24 & 25 in which Jubilee gets some vampire therapy.
• X-Men Legacy #261 & 262 in which Team Wolverine has some Biblical-level issues.

Earlier SPOILER alert is still in effect.

Around the web

The last two times (only two times) I have done this feature, I’ve ventured forth into the depths of the Internet and sought out a webcomic to read.  Overall, it was not a pleasant experience.  Both were serious, ongoing tales that I felt had problems with characterizations.  Or lack thereof.  So, not in the mood to make it three months in a row, I wimped out and selected a webcomic from one of the one’s that the Joystiq blog on Huffington Post highlighted.  This webcomic is titled Awkward Zombie, and is written and drawn by Katie Tiedrich.

I’m not really certain why it’s titled Awkward Zombie.  The closest thing to a zombie was an undead World of Warcraft character.  But whatever.  In a nutshell, the strip is mostly a satire on video games.  There are some instances where she does a real life comic strip, but mostly, the strips point out the humor, often unintended, within video games.  Or, as with her Super Smash Bros. strips, some funny “behind the scenes” moments that could be happening.  The strips mostly have Nintendo properties (Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, Super Smash Bros.), but there is also quite a few World of Warcraft themed entries as well.

The art isn’t really good, but it’s good enough to get the point across.  She makes fun of her own art in her comments section, adding things to the list of stuff she can’t draw.  But, the strips are usually funny.  In prepping for this entry, I had only intended to read some at the beginning and some at the end, but I ended up reading all 237 of them.  There were only a couple strips that I didn’t get, but if you have any history with popular video games, you should get the jokes.

I highly recommend that you check out this webcomic.

Below the break is one of my favorites.

eXaminations: 2/22/12 Part 1

Hello there.  It’s been about a month since I ventured to pick up my new comics (sorry – traffic issues in my hometown) but I made the trip today and picked up what I had missed.  I had thought it wouldn’t be too bad, since it’s only been a month and I only peruse the X-books.  Unfortunately for my pocket book, Marvel has decided that its titles should be released at a ludicrous bi-monthly pace, so I basically have two issues of every book I buy, with this trend continuing for the foreseeable future.

What that means for you, dear reader, is that I have a lot to cover in this edition of eXaminations.  For order sake, I’m going to be splitting it up into two parts, with nine issues a piece.  For part one, we’ll be looking at:

• Alpha Flight #8 (of 8) in which the limited series wraps up.
• Astonishing X-Men #46 in which Cyclops meetsCountdown: Arena.
• Generation Hope #16 in which the series gets to its penultimate issue.
• New Mutants #37 & 38 in which Magma dates the devil and Cypher explores his death.
• Uncanny X-Force #21 & 22 in which the team gets very British.
• Uncanny X-Men #6 & 7 in which the team get talked down to a lot.

There are, of course, SPOILERS within.  Let’s begin.

Batman: Gates of Gotham

Have you ever stared up at the stars, began pondering the mysteries of life and thought, “gee, I wonder how Gotham City was built?”  If you answered “yes,” then Batman:  Gates of Gotham is the story of you.  Well, even if you said “no,” Gates of Gotham is still a pretty entertaining read.  And besides, Batman takes on a Steam-punk villain, so there’s that also.  Oh, and it’s set before the New 52 reboot.  So, if you long for a simpler time when DC had only rebooted its universe 3 times instead of 4, then this is the book for you, too.

The story is by Scott Snyder (Batman, American Vampire) and Kyle Higgins (Nightwing), with the dialogue by Higgins and Ryan Parrott.  The art was done by Trevor McCarthy.  The story was initially a 5-issue mini-series.  The trade paperback was recently released, and contains the 5 issues, along with the Nightrunner story that was split up between Detective Comics Annual #12 and Batman Annual #28.  This story was written by Kyle Higgins and drawn by Trevor McCarthy. 

A comic book bust (har har)

Let’s talk about Power Girl’s boobs.

Yes, fine, that was a statement that was designed specifically for a search hit (from those who have yet to realize that in the same information superhighway they are using to search for comic breasts, there are far more pictures of actual breasts), but our topic today does regard Power Girl and her ample bosom.

Co-writer J.R. pointed out to me a short while ago that in his mysterious and confusing corner of comicdom known as the “DC Universe” Power Girl has recently gotten a wardrobe change and received the fanboy huff that goes with it.

Perhaps the casual comic fan might not know that much about Power Girl, like that she’s the Supergirl of an alternate Earth (it was Earth-2 before the relaunch, I don’t know what it is now) and sort of a cousin to Superman…I think.  That may because Power Girl always sat in the middle of the sort-of famous DC heroes like Green Arrow, the Kyle Rayner GL, and Red Tornado.  More than likely, the most people should know about her is that she was the heroine with the giant rack…even in the comic book world of gravity-defying breast enormities.

Seen here: breasts.

So what’s the big deal about a wardrobe change for Power Girl?  It’s not that they’ve changed anything about her.  It’s not really even that it seems to look strangely similar to best-left-forgotten Image hero Supreme.  No, it’s that they’ve gone and taken away the questionable cleavage flap that was the signature feature of the character.

Now you can't tell if she even has breasts.

You might tell by this point that I’m not really minding the wardrobe change.  It’s not like Power Girl was that big of a character.  Sure, the costume has replaced cheesecake with generic, but it’s not even the worst thing she’s ever worn.

Head held in shame for good reason.

So what’s the hubub all about?  Let’s talk about it.

The Walking Recap – 2/19/12 – “Triggerfinger”

This is a recap/review, so of course there are spoilers.  You’ve been warned.

We left off last week with some lines being drawn within the group between those that agree with Rick and those that agree with Shane.  Lori flipped her car while trying to go into town to get Rick, because she wasn’t patient enough to wait for him to come back.  Rick, Glenn, and Hershel ran into a couple strangers in town, but Rick killed them when they were about to become hostile.

Here are the important things to remember from this episode.  All of the details are after the break.  Lori survives her car crash, and is brought back to camp after Shane lied to her.  Rick, Glenn, and Hershel have a shootout with 3 other people, but ended up bringing one of them back to the farm, blindfolded, after he was left for dead.  Shane has told Lori that they are meant to be together.  Lori told this to Rick, and that Shane will do anything it takes to protect her to, because he thinks Rick is incapable of protecting them.  Andrea and Shane have a conversation about needing to do what is necessary in order to protect the group.

I felt that this was a better episode, and not because there was zombie killing.  The tension in this episode was very good.  Not only the scenes in town, but everything involving Shane.  This stuff with Shane is building up to the point where he is going to snap, but it’s unclear when it could happen.  However, I’m not sure how I feel about Andrea being on Shane’s side.  If feels wrong, but I guess they needed to have one of the main characters on Shane’s side, and Andrea makes sense.  Using her instead of Daryl allows to build up more tension between Shane and Dale.  That, and she is already pretty annoying.

Some morning tidbits

Mark Waid is working to change how digital comics are made.  Check out the link to see his thoughts and a demonstration on his iPad about how it would work.  If you’re too lazy to click on the link, in a nutshell, he says that most digital comics that are put out today are really just scan of the print version, which aren’t really made to be viewed on computers (though I think things like iPads could display images pretty well, probably).  What he wants to do is to make comics that are meant to be viewed on the screen, using the entire screen in the process.  There’s a video that goes along with it, but to me, it looks like all it is is showing panels one or two at a time, without the option of seeing an entire page, because there isn’t an entire page.  But, I might be a bit biased, because I still prefer reading a physical copy.  And I guess the way art is done would be different if you know that focus is staying on a single panel, rather than a person looking at an entire page.

Also, did you know that Valiant is restarting X-O Manowar in May?  Neither did I.  I also didn’t know that the original X-O Manowar #0 sold 800,000 copies.  If that doesn’t scream “speculator boom,” than I don’t know what else does.  Wonder what this relaunch will sell.