In short, Cartoon Network re-tooled it from a DC Comics show to a typical Cartoon Network show.  Gone are the well thought out story lines.  In its place are two separate segments, that each try to stretch out a single gag to fill 10-12 minutes of time.  It’s as if the writers had these plans for their short segments, and stuck with them after finding out that they were getting their own show.  The shorts worked because they kept the jokes short and to the point.  You had the setup, and then the punchline.  Basic joke telling.  With this show, you have the setup, some explanation, some random filler, repeating the setup, possibly doing the setup yet again, and then the punchline.  By the time they get to the punchline, you’re tired of the joke, and it’s not funny.  And the animation is terrible.  Well, it’s comparable to other Cartoon Network shows, which is pretty terrible.  It’s so bad, that it doesn’t really matter that all of the voice actors returned for this, because they’re reciting terrible dialogue.

But maybe I’m just angry because I’m afraid they cancelled Young Justice for this.  Young Justice was a wonderful show, that upheld the tradition of good, animated DC shows.  Maybe I’m just getting old.  A person is old when they consider something to be an assault on their childhood.  Granted, Teen Titans Go! wasn’t part of my childhood.

This movie, released in 2002, was based on the graphic novel of the same name and written by Max Allan Collins and released by Paradox Press.  Admittedly, I’ve never actually read the book, but that’s beside the point.  The movie was directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall), and stars Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Paul Newman, and Daniel Craig.

The movie takes place during the Great Depression.  Tom Hanks plays a mob (or is it mafia?) enforcer for Paul Newman.  He goes on a job with Newman’s son, played by Daniel Craig.  Things go horribly wrong, and Craig ends up killing someone.  All of this is witnessed by Hank’s son.  Because he witnessed this murder, Hank’s has to take his son and go on run.  Newman hires a hitman, played by Jude Law, to go after Hanks and his son.

Yes, of course, there is more to the story than that.  I just don’t want to spoil anything for anyone that hasn’t seen the movie, yet.  Because it really is a wonderful movie.  Personally, I hadn’t heard about this movie, until stumbling across at a Blockbuster (remember those?).  And with this cast, it’s surprising that this movie didn’t receive more publicity.  Maybe no thought that a Tommy gun wielding Tom Hanks was a marketable thing.  But that’s part of the allure, to me.  It goes against most of the roles I had ever seen him play.

So, if you’ve never seen this movie, I just you find a way to watch it.  I’m not saying that you should do anything illegal to watch this movie.  But you do whatever it takes to watch this movie.

]]> http://comicdomwrecks.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/one-of-my-favorites-2/feed/ 0 From Parts Unknown road_to_perdition tom hanks tommy gun http://comicdomwrecks.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/guy-gardner-putt-putt/ http://comicdomwrecks.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/guy-gardner-putt-putt/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 12:41:56 +0000 J. R. http://comicdomwrecks.wordpress.com/?p=5947 ]]>

from Green Lantern Corps #20, written by Peter Tomasi, drawn by Fernando Pasarin

Poor Guy.  Even playing the sport of kings, putt-putt, he is hounded by the uselessness that is Aquaman.  And yes, it is putt-putt and not miniature golf.  Mini golf would not have obstacles in the way.  Well, that’s my definition anyways.

from Young Avengers #4, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Jamie McAkelvie & Mike Norton

You can become awesome, that’s what.  But you’d know that if you were reading Young Avengers.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed Team 7 and Firestorm right until the end.  (Well, Firestorm has one more issue.)  But I know that I can easily find books like them to read.  Spy team books are not difficult to find.  Hell, that’s essentially what Justice League of America is.  And Firestorm is a young Superhero doing young Superhero things.  Not that uncommon.  But Dial H and Demon Knights were something unique within the DC Universe.  With Demon Knights ending, I can’t simply move on to the other Medieval fantasy series in the DCU, because there isn’t one.  With Dial H ending I can’t just move to another book that…well, I can’t actually describe the type of book.  I just know that there isn’t another book like it.

These aren’t just cancellations.  They’re a decrease of variety.  People complain about how many Batman family books there are, or how many Avengers books there are.  But when something comes out from one of the Big 2 that is truly unique, it doesn’t sell well.  And we’re not talking about poor for a title sold by DC.  These books were not selling well at all.  In April, Dial H was at #149 with 13,355 issues sold, and Demon Knights was at #155 with 12,941 issues sold.  And both those numbers are pathetic.  And I blame you.

Yes you.  I haven’t been this mad at you since The Circle was cancelled by Image many years ago.  You should have been buying these books because there were fantastic.  But seriously, I think there are a couple of factors for why these books didn’t find an audience.  People that would like these series aren’t really looking for them within DC, and there isn’t a very large market for these types of books.  Yes, yes, we all know that comic books are more than superheroes, but let’s be honest.  Comic books are mostly superheroes.  Look at what dominates the sales charts.  Numbers don’t lie.  Well, mostly.  They can be manipulated, but sales figures show what is in demand.  (Yes, there’s some discrepancy between what is sold to shops, and what they sell, but that gets weeded out over the life of a series.)

Oh well, such is the risk of buying some of the unusual offerings by the Big 2.  Honestly, I’m surprised that Dial H will make it to #15.  I was guessing it’d get the axe around #8, like Team 7 did.  With Demon Knights, I’m not certain how long I expected it to last.  Making it to issue #23 isn’t bad for a book like this, I guess.  In the end, I don’t regret spending time and money on these titles.  It was a fun journey while it lasted.

Farewell Dial H and Demon Knights.

Keep in mind that I don’t read every single title that DC releases, but I felt that one of the rare times it actually worked was with Dial H.  For those that don’t read Dial H, which is probably most of you, it is about two people that are trying to uncover the secrets of a magic telephone dial that will give them the powers of a hero when they dial H-E-R-O.  For the life of the title (previous 11 issues), they have all been random heroes that no one had ever heard of.  It’s revealed to Rosie that these are real heroes from other dimensions/Earths/whatever, previously.  However, Nelson figures this out when he dials and becomes The Flash.  It’s something that’s revealed on the cover, and had actual ramifications within the comic, and was fairly well done.  It was an a shocking moment that fit in well with the story.  Job well done.  Unfortunately, there aren’t really many other instances that I saw where this gimmick worked as well.

Another good instance, more of a nod and a wink, was Detective Comics.  This issue would have been issue #900, so you have in second section of the cover, the question of who are the 900, with “900″ in very large font.  Now, the 900 aren’t anything that’s going to hang around, but it was a good way to celebrate the milestone of reaching issue #900 without going through the hassle of re-numbering.

Most other instances seemed very forced.  Like in Earth 2, where Mister Miracle and Big Barda are shown on the cover, but are only on one page in the issue.  And it’s not even the last page leading to a cliffhanger.  It’s in the middle of the issue, and has nothing to do with anything going on in that issue, or the issue after that.  It could have easily been left out of the story.  Another instance was in Action Comics.  You get a tease that Superman will be fighting Jimmy Olsen at some point.  Well, as it turns out, he only hallucinates for 2 pages that he’s fighting Jimmy.

The worst usage of this that I saw had to be in Justice League.  On the main cover, it asks “who is killing Superman?”  The second section shows Batman, holding Kryptonite.  Guess what.  There’s nothing even remotely close to this in the entire issue.  Not that the issue itself is bad, but that is an incredibly misleading cover.  I can only hope that no one actually bought that issue based solely on the cover, because they’ll be sorely disappointed.

In the end, it just seemed pretty much useless.  Of course, most gimmicks are pretty useless.  The only bright spot is that this seemed like one gimmick that could easily be shoehorned into plans the writers already had.  Though, things shouldn’t need to be shoehorned into stories, but that’s a subject for another time.

from TMNT Color Classics #10, written and drawn by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

Perhaps Goongala isn’t the most intimidating thing to yell.  It makes you sound like a crazy person.  Though maybe that’s the point.  Maybe a crazy person is intimidating.

From the beginning, Wonder Woman has been protecting a lady named Zola, who was pregnant with a child of Zeus.  Zola needed protecting because of a prophecy that said a child of Zeus would take the throne of Olympus.  (Some believe the prophecy says “last” child.)  So, all manner of Greek gods and goddesses have gone after the child.  All for their own selfish reasons, of course.  For instance, Hera isn’t happy about Zeus having a bastard child, so she just wants to kill.  Others want to see it’s death, because they see the child as someone that may get in the way of them taking over throne.  Or they believe that if they control the child, then they will control Zeus.  So, needless to say, there is a lot of betrayal and backstabbing going amongst all of the characters.

And it is quite a colorful set of characters.  Seeing Cliff Chiang’s designs for the mythological characters is one of the joys of the book.  Each appearance is unique, and well suited to their particular duties as a deity.  I’m not going to post any picture, because honestly, that would be a lot of work.  Just Google it.  Or Bing it, if you prefer.

Unfortunately, only a little over 49,000 people are buying the monthly title.  Sure, that puts it somewhere in the 30s in the rankings, but that number is far too low for a quality book like this.  (Hawkeye is lower,  but that’s a plea for another day.)

For your enjoyment, here’s a page from the most recent issue.  Not drawn by Cliff Chiang, but someone that is trying to mimic his style.  Oh, and that is Orion with her, who’s been a pain since appearing a few issues ago.

*Those other titles include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Fables, and Hawkeye.

Iron Man 3

Directed by Shane Black

Written by Drew Pearce & Shane Black

Starring
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron ManGwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
Don Cheadle as Colonel James Rhodes/Iron Patriot
Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian
Rebecca Hall as Maya Hensen
Jon Favereau as Happy Hogan
Sir Ben Kingsly as The Mandarin

See, Iron Man 1 and 2 director Jon Favereau didn’t go far.  He just didn’t direct.  But anyways, the movie begins in Berm, Switzerland on New Year’s Eve 1999.  There, Tony Stark is hitting on “botanist” Maya Hensen, all while ignoring Aldrich Killian, from Advanced Idea Mechanics.  In Hall’s room, she shows her ferns (yes, the actual plants) that are part of her experiments.  Despite being told to leave it alone, Happy breaks off a small branch.  Shortly after, it’s shown growing back, but there is then an explosion in that room.  But this doesn’t keep Tony from spending the night with her, and not saying good-bye in the morning.  He also told Aldrich that he’d meet him on the roof, but never did. 

Back in the present, Pepper is running Stark Industries, Happy is now head of security at Stark Industries, and Tony is suffering from what can best be described as PTSD after the events in New York.  You know the ones.  The end of The Avengers when he flew through a wormhole, and barely made it back.  So yeah, pretty much when anyone brings it up, he freaks out.  Meanwhile, a terrorist know as The Mandarin has been setting off bombs at American targets around the world.  Iron Man has so far stayed out of it, as it’s a governmental issue and not an Avengers issue.  Between you and me, that sounds like a fancy excuse as to why no one else showed up to help.

While Aldrich is at a meeting with Pepper, Happy gets a bad feeling about Aldrich and his bodyguard, so he follows the bodyguard to Mann’s Chinese Theater.  There, the body guard meets with someone else, and drops off a briefcase.  It turns out that what is in this briefcase is an injection that causes the person that took it to glow, and eventually blow up in a massive explosion.  This explosion puts Happy in a coma, while Aldrich’s bodyguard is shown healing as he walks off.  The Mandarin takes credit for the attack, and this pulls Tony into the fight as he issues The Mandarin a challenge.  Shortly later, helicopters show up and destroy his house.  Pepper escaped with Maya Hensen, who had shown up saying she needed to see Tony, and Tony barely escapes and ends up in Rose Hills, Tenn., because of a previously programmed flight plan.  There, he continues to work on getting to the bottom of who The Mandarin is.

From there, it’s pretty spoilery, so I won’t go into any further details.  And it gets a bit complicated.  But something that stuck out to me was how little time Tony actually spent in the Iron Man armor.  Sure, it might be more than he did in Iron Man 1, but it just didn’t seem like much.  You could have almost just titled the movie “Tony Stark.”  Granted, that’s not a bad thing.  It was refreshing to see something different.  We’ve seen Iron Man go out and have fights against villains that were essentially Iron Man rip-offs.  The Mandarin is something different entirely.

Sir Ben Kingsly as The Mandarin is fantastic.  It’s really indescribable.  You just have to see it.  The other new additions are passable.  Rebecca Hall doesn’t get a lot of screen time, and Guy Pearce is kind of generic.  Sure, he’s someone you want to punch in the face, but Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer was a better man that that you want to punch in the face.  Of course, I probably like Iron Man 2 more than a lot of people.

This is a bit of a darker movie.  Well, maybe that’s not the best way to put it.  It’s definitely more serious than the previous installments.  I think part of the fact is the ability to dig deeper in the character of Tony Stark.  What makes him who he is.  And how does he react to the life changing events that transpired during The Avengers.  Tony’s just a man, and there he was dealing with otherworldly beings and Gods.  Sure, he seems fine at the end of Avengers, but this movie allows for some time to pass, and once the adrenaline of the situation is gone, the realization of what just happened is allowed to set in.  And it scares him.  And coming to grip with those events are what makes this a serious movie.  Oh sure, there is plenty of comedic relief, but the overall tone of the movie is a bit more somber.

In the end, I highly recommend that you see this movie.  It is well worth the price of admission.  And as always, stay for the after credits scene.