Arrow Hits The Target With Its Second Season

Agents of SHIELD wasn't the only comics based TV series to finish its season last week, as Arrow pulled the curtain on its second, with a rather explosive ending. Also this season saw it take a much more obvious step towards it's superhero source material than the more crime drama filled debut. Mostly because of the villain Deathstroke.

As soon as Slade Wilson was introduced I was intrigued. We'd already met Deathstroke, yet here was the man behind the mask as a separate identity. It seemed like only a matter of time before he swapped sides. Yet he was originally presented as the man who made Oliver Queen into the man who donned the hood. And they eventually became brothers-in-arms. It got to a point where the two facing off against each other was unthinkable.

Arrow: Sharp and on point

Apparently I've not written about Arrow on here yet. Which I find amazing because it's probably the best moving picture* content DC is putting out right now. Over the last two years Arrow has become one of the my favourite programmes currently running. So I'm gonna spew random thoughts on the series to date, so I can look more closely in the future.

Ever since Kevin Smith rebooted him, and more explicitly Brad Meltzer did a run straight after, Green Arrow has been a one of the DC heroes I really enjoy. I've always liked the characters that have no powers, but hang with the big names. Batman sort of exemplifies that, but he's The God Damn Batman. He almost doesn't count. But Oliver Queen most certainly does**. Partly because of his social politics, and that they moved him so far away from just a Batman clone who uses a bow and arrow. So it's a little odd then that I love a show that puts him right back under the shadow of the Bat.

The De-evolution of DC Comics

The parting of ways between DC and the Batwoman creative team of W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams is yet another sign that all is not well at one of comics biggest houses. Since the launch of New 52, it seems that there's always a writer or artist leaving because editorial is overbearing. We barely get any creator leaving because their story is finished. It's nearly always their editor wouldn't even let them tell it.

This time the Batwoman duo had their leading lesbian propose to her girlfriend, and were then told that they could never have the two women actually marry. The news of their departure led to another outcry from fans wondering just what is wrong with DC? What are the editors thinking? And more shouts that they were done with the publisher.

BeefJack: Injustice: Gods Among Us review

Last week I said I doubted I would get a blog post up and did. Today I definitely won't. However, once again I have a review. Back at BeefJack for this one

Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Seriously got to indulge my comic book fanboy here. Despite being very cautious about it when the game was first announced I ended up absolutely loving it. As to why? Well go read the review.

Earth 2: A DC Reboot done right

The obvious topic for this week's post was obviously Disney closing the doors on LucasArts. That's not what I'm going to talk about though. Why should become clear soon. What I'm going to talk about instead is DC Comics' Earth 2.

I've been pretty vocal about my unhappiness with DC's New 52 reboot. I'm not sure if I've ever made it clear as to why though. It boils down to the fact it's a mess. A reboot is a time to clean up, make everything work together brilliantly. Just like Young Justice did. The fact they let Batman and Green Lantern escape mostly undamaged is another factor. Trying to keep some stories in continuity but have details change is an exercise in futility. I stopped reading everything DC. Even Nightwing. Then last weekend I tried Earth 2, and it gets a lot of things right.

Young Justice is served

Young Justice has finished. The show based around the sidekicks of the DC Universe and Batman setting them up to be some black ops division of the Justice League. A brilliant show, with adult themes that just happened to be animated. After two seasons it was talked about with reverence, and got a fairly decent audience to start with, but Cartoon Network did everything they could to kill it. And being the channel that shows it, they have final say.

BeefJack: How other superhero games can replicate Arkham City’s success

or What can other Superheroes learn Arkham City and Rise above the Dark Knight?

Yeah that was my title, I love it but it was way too long.

But here it is. The feature I may have been born to write.

Bonus blog paragraph. It was cut because it was really the same argument as the bit about Superman but from a slightly different angle.

Another example is Green Lantern who is only limited by his imagination, which works brilliantly in comics or in movies (his powers, not the movie itself you understand, that was tripe). In a game that is next to impossible to pull off though, he's limited to the objects the developers give him. In a team up game that is going be massively limited, but give a studio the time and resources to create a variety of animations and context sensitive creations and you're getting close to a cool sound Green Lantern game.

Pricing the Digital Ink

To keep a theme running I'm once again going to go on about comics. Yes OK I'm missing my weekly trip to the store to pick them up, and then get home and devour them over a coffee.

Moving at the end of August means that I've not been in a brick and mortar store since DC's whole new 52 kicked off. Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, DC has rebooted their entire universe and every single issue was a new number 1 from the very beginning. Sort of. OK it's not that simple but I'm not interested in that right now. What I'm here to get at is Digital Comics and pricing.

Muted?

I have to admit I'm getting really pissed of at myself for not posting more often, its not like I'm short of topics either. Plenty of major comic stories going on, and I'm even reading some. Sooo many good games coming out in the run up to Christmas its ridiculous. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero 3 and Mass Effect are all subjects I can talk about. I think that's the main problem, I'm trying to complete so much that the bit of time I'm on my computer is spent trying to catch up on the sites I regularly visit. So a quick run down of recent events is in order I think.

Halo 3 rocked and I spent one Hell of a lot of time playing multiplayer. I was kinda disappointed that the campaign was so short but with the way the trilogy finished I feel quite happy with. But I left Halo 3 MP way before I was ready to and there was one reason for that.

Call of Duty 4, my God this game rocks. Right now I'm pretty tempted to label this one as my Game of the Year but we'll wait and see. Multiplayer is immense and the Baboons are one nasty team to come across. Is quite likely to take the thrown from Halo 3 and Rainbow 6: Vegas as my most played online.

Guitar Hero 3. Boss Battles are SHIT! At least in single player anyway, I've yet to play one in multiplayer. Overall I'm happy with it, but it's Guitar Hero so you can't really go wrong. I can't shake the feeling that Neversoft haven't quite got it and 4 will be the one that really shows that, 3 comes across as the "We need an engine that matches Harmonix's". Co-op career was very nice though.

Mass Effect I'm gonna leave a bit longer before I talk about it because I'm about halfway through and liking it so far. Assassins Creed I'm getting for Christmas so that can wait too.

On the comics front Messiah Complex is shaping to be a good X-Men crossover which I nearly didn't bother with due to too much other stuff going on. Sinestro Corps continues to impress but is starting to dwindle with the infrequency of the titles recently. Booster Gold's new title is great and another I nearly missed out on. Top Cow's First Born and Pilot Season are both something I really wished I hadn't bothered with.

Doomsday

There's plenty of topics I should talk about right about now. I've watched quite a few films that I've enjoyed and of course there's Halo 3. However, being English it’s far easy to moan than it is to heap praise. So today I'm talking about the first of DC's Direct to DVD animated movies Superman: Doomsday. Supposedly the last movie to appear in Bruce Timm's style but not connected to the DCAU that he shepherded for over ten years.

Now I've never read the original comics of the Death of Superman but this movie takes the direction of telling the whole death and return. The Return is something I have read and it felt odd that where we had four pretenders running around we now have just one and filling both the roles of the Eradicator and then later Cyborg Superman while having the origin of Superboy. It also had parts from all three storylines that make up the Death and Return and as such certain parts felt under developed. Thankfully that didn't try to shoehorn it all in with things like Mongul attacking Coast City which were just too big to cover if they were determined to fit it all in one movie.

Onto the actual movie and first of all the main characters. Once again Superman and Lex Luthor have both been redesigned. Lex has been made a lot thinner which seemed to suit this version and definitely suited James Marsters voice. Superman on the other hand has had some lines added to his face for some bizarre reason and just ends up making him look weird rather than add any gravity to his presence. Adam Baldwin does a great job as the Big Blue though and that certainly made up for the face lines. Lois looks exactly the same as the old version which makes hearing Ann Heche's voice all the more strange in her first scene, I'm not sure whether it's this shock or not but Ann Heche's voice work isn't up to the standard of her co-stars but as the film gets further along that is noticeable improvement. Doomsday also looked better in his brief JLU appearance than he did in the movie.

Then there's the fight scenes. Seeing these animated was great, they are a lot more brutal than anything we've seen before from DC. They were long, nasty and Superman certainly took the worst beating I've ever seen which is only right for the story telling the Death of Superman. However, compared to the final fight against Darkseid in JLU these just lacked any drama and considering the story that's just not right.

Intergalactic Space Nazis

This week starts yet another reality altering universe defining comic crossover. After Infinite Crisis and Civil War both hitting my wallet in a big way I said I was out for the foreseeable future. That didn't last though. Shortly after Crisis I started picking up Green Lantern just in time to see Batman fail recruitment and Amon Sur get inducted into the Sinestro Corps. In the past few years my interest in GL has been slowly growing and I've read most of the important points of the mythos but I wasn't that bothered about this crossover. However, the backup stories detailing some of the more important members of the Sinestro Corps was slowly getting me hooked and then I read the Ion maxi-series which not only was a great look at Kyle's new place in the universe but offered a hint of things to come so I signed up. From here on in expect major spoilers.

The first issue, a one-shot, landed this week and the story kicked off in a major way. Hal and Kyle have both been following up their own investigations into the Yellow Rings and they meet up on Oa, the Green Lantern base world, just in time for the first frontal attack by the Sinestro Corps. Kyle gets taken and many GL's bite the big one and things look bad. However, things look at lot worse when you find what happens to Kyle now that he's in Sinestro's clutches. Mentally tortured and stripped of his defences we're shown that his new expanded powers are thanks to benevolent entity, basically the new Parallax's opposite. This now gone and Kyle scared out of his mind leaves him open to possession by the fore-mentioned opposite and we have a new Parallax. The reveal of the rest of the higher ups of the Corps is more power than the bad guys in Infinite Crisis ever showed.

What really impresses me is that Johns seems to have been building towards this since his first Green Lantern script, the entity of Parallax was questionable but at least made Hal redeemable, making it not the only entity out there makes perfect sense. He's also tied in his own work from Infinite Crisis while also pulling from Crisis on Infinite Earth's and the entire history of the Green Lanterns. I'm glad I'm reading this crossover because it was easily my favourite of the week, and a week that included Iron Fist and X-Factor that is saying something. To be fair Sinestro Corp has always been billed as a Green Lantern story and so far I don't see this being untrue. After the last few pages I had to check the cover to check the name was "Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps" and due to the amount of power there has me worried for the characters which are fast becoming my favourites.

The Big Boy Scout

Of course I have to talk about SUPERMAN RETURNS. A thoroughly good Superhero flick, which has equal focus on the relationship between Lois and Clark as it does Luthor’s evil scheme. My heart started racing from the very start with the opening credits with the John Williams film, which I admit is kinda odd since I’ve never had too much of a soft spot for the Reeve films, while the first two were good, I wasn’t even born when they were released and only ever caught them on ITV. I have to admit, it’s been some years since I’ve seen. Also several FUCK YEAH moments when Supes was doing his thing.

On a down note I had a problem with a few of the characters, I always had a problem with Gene Hackman’s Luthor so Kevin Spacey’s didn’t rub me the right way, though he did do a better job than Hackman. Parker Posey’s character annoyed the crap out of me, I will never understand why they’ve had Luthor have someone like that hang around with him, an introduction of someone like Mercy would have been so much better. On the plus side I expected to hate James Marsters’ character from the moment he was introduced, and was pleasantly surprised that Singer and co made him a very likeable character who I’m going to feel very sorry for when he finds out the revelation that Clark and the viewer are shown at the end of the movie.

Also the flight scenes were a mixed bag, some were “Oh dear God that’s some terrible CGI”, others, well, lets just say, I believed a man could fly.

On a minor note, at San Diego Comic Con, Edgar Wright, director and co-writer of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead has been announced as the director of Marvel’s Ant Man. An interesting choice of character for a movie translation, but Wright picked and wrote it himself and the few ideas he mentioned at the Con sounded quite cool.

Nightwing: All My Life

So I've decided to have a go at one of these music videos edited together with animation. Because its me it had to be Nightwing and Foo Fighters. Enjoy!

Update on Smallville and Stargate

So I managed to get through the whole of season 4 of Smallville and it was quite a slog. My problem with the ‘losing memory’ story line got worse with 3 episodes in a row doing it at one point. The main story arc kept me hooked though and I’m glad it did. Season 5 has significantly improved things with only one “Oops, I’ve forgotten what I’ve actually done” episode to date. We’re also getting more concentration on the arc rather than the odd 5 minutes thrown in. I’m also getting perverse enjoyment about Clark worrying about the very problem that Brodie brought up in Mallrats, that he might take out Lana with one well aimed shot.

I’ve also got over my problems with the continuity with one simple realisation. There is no way this Clark can ever become any version of Superman that we know of. Lois and Lex would take one look at Superman and recognise the guy they spent a good few years hanging out with. And so what? If you’re that bothered lets call it an Elseworlds and stop worrying.

It also seems to have taken a leaf out of Stargate’s book for getting audience by having other cult actors appear. With James Marsters of Buffy and Angel fame appearing as Brainiac (though never called that) and having it rubbed in your face with a Vampire episode and the lead vampire being called Buffy. Then the other Duke of Haazard turned up, in a Dodge Charger no less. Plus they not just using real people but pulling in other DC heroes now. After season 4’s Kid Flash episode, we’ve had Aquaman and Cyborg from the Teen Titans in season 5.

Speaking of Stargate it looks like we are getting the mini Farscape reunion with Claudia Black becoming a regular in season 10. It’s also covering Firefly/Serenity angle with Morena Baccarin confirmed to appear and Richard Dean Anderson’s Jack O’Neill coming back for an episode or two. Plus Michael Ironside appeared at the end of Season 9 and he’s practically been in everything going.

DC saved by Superman and Schuie's up to his old tricks

Well, sort of. It was the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend, the first F1 race I've watched for ages.

David Coulthard, DC for short, just secured Red Bull Racing's first Formula 1 Grand Prix podium plus DC has been having a bit of a rough time for the last few seasons. On a weekend where they were sponsored by Superman Returns. The car had the well known S on the nose and the back was made to look like a cape billowing from the driver's cockpit.

On the podium itself Coulthard had to wear a red cape, which would have been even funnier if he had been wearing the Superman firesuit like he was meant to and his team mate had done.

As for Michael Schumacher, I'd more or less forgotten all his dodgy little moves over the years, until Qualifying yesterday. Michael was top of the board with minutes to go before the end of the session and he goes and parks his car on Ras Cas corner and ruins everyone's lap so they can't better him.

Thankfully the stewards agreed with My Dad and Me (plus 90% of the F1 community) and sent Schumacher to start at the race from the pit lane. It shows how good a driver he is to end the race 5th (though at least 4 or 5 of those places were attrition).

I agree with Jackie Stewart that Schumacher didn't set out to do it, he had a minor incident which he decided to make a major one and ruin everyone else's laps.It seems a stupid move in what may be his last year in racing to remind everyone what type of person he can be, bringing back memories such as Adelaide with Damon Hill and Jerez with Jaques Villeneuve.

Smallville's gotten a bit poo really

Smallville was something I really enjoyed when it started. A look at Superman as his powers kicked in was pretty cool. Even if every villain of the week somehow got their powers from Kryptonite. Then Clark started to find out about his extraterrestrial origins. It started off well, and the use of Terence Stamp (Zod from Superman 2) as the voice of Jor-El and Christopher Reeve as the scientist who knows everything, later to be replaced by Margot Kidder after his death were master strokes.

However, the direction they took his plans for Kal-El didn’t really sit well with me. Now I’m not one of those geeks that cries when ever something changes in translation and admittedly I only know the broad strokes of Supes’ origin but as far as I’m aware Kal’s father never sent him to Earth to rule it and for me it ruins some of Superman’s nobility.

Also every other episode is someone loosing control of their body, pissing people off then coming to not remembering a thing and everyone not liking them. First one I can remember is Clark and the Red Kryptonite, and really it was the only good one. Then I pretty sure Chloe and Lana went under control several times during that season just for Clark to go into a cave mouth and come out as “Kal-El”. Then the cheerleaders start making everyone fall in love with them, Lionel Luthor takes over Clark’s body and is nasty to everyone and then Lana is taken over by a 16^th century witch, closely followed by Lois and Chloe, and I’m only half way through the season.

There is the occasional good episode though such as Kid Flash turning up, and that’s a continuity fuck up and a half, but it’s getting to the point that they’re not enough. I’m going to slowly work my way through to the end of Season 4 and see if I can be bothered with Season 5.

When Dick met Chris

I was given the 'Batman and Robin' toy as a present from Drew a few years ago, when I bought the Nightwing toy and I saw them next to each other, this was the first thing that popped into my head.

Comics Aren’t Just For Kids

In this here text you may find a rant about Comics aren’t just for kids. However, this is more about a conversation I’ve been holding in for years. The conversation you have when someone actually says to you “But comics are for kids!”

Last night, I was in the pub with a fellow comic reader and a lady from work. As the night was winding up my friend just had to ask me about Green Lantern: Rebirth #4. The lady in question sat with a puzzled expression as we chatted for a minute or two about Hal, Kyle, Ollie and Sinestro. She just had to ask what we were talking about, “Comics” we both replied. Her eyebrow raised and “Aren’t comics just for kids?”
Darren launched straight into “Some of the comics I get I let my kid flick through, but others I wouldn’t. Take the Punisher for instance…”
I announce I’m going to the toilet while he covers the Punisher, figuring hit her with an obvious one first. As I leave I just hear “He’s a marine who’s just got back from ‘Nam and he goes on a picnic with his family and they stumble on to a mob hit…”

So I siphon the python, get some more drinks in and wander back to the table. Not sure what Darren’s said but it looks like a god damn good start. Angie still looks a bit hesitant though. “Why not just tell the stories in books?”
“Why should you?” I ask
Angie starts saying how books are quicker and easier to show what’s happening. Personally I think she’d conceded that comics tell stories for adults, but is struggling with the fact adult stories are being told in what she sees as a child medium.
We hit back that think of comics as a film, the art as the actors. While a book tells the story by spelling everything for you out, in a comic the art helps tell the story. Someone is sad it shows on their face, someone is sad their body language shows it. The look on Angie’s face proves another score for the comic geeks.

Angie’s crawling for ground, she knows she has a point, tries to bring up Batman, he’d been mentioned during the GL: Rebirth conversation. The problem is some people still think of Batman as Adam West, “Holly Campness, Batman” and the death traps they always escape at the start of the next episode.
Now she’s just wandered right into my territory. Time for the big guns.

Batman is a true psychopath. As a child he watched his parents get gunned down in a robbery, vowed no one would ever suffer like that and dedicated his life to fighting crime dressed as a bat which causes fear in criminals.
Angie hits back with Robin.
“Do you remember Robin is Dick Grayson?” I get an affirmative smile and nod. “Well in the comics he’s grown up and nearly got married.”
“And became Nightwing,” Darren pipes up, somehow I miss this little fact out, don’t ask how I wonder myself.
“The second Robin had his brains smashed in with a crowbar by the Joker,” Angie’s face is dropping as I say this, Darren drops in “Then blown up” and I carry on, “Which brings us to the third Robin, Tim. Tim’s mother is killed and his dad crippled when he first became Robin. In the last year, his dad, his girlfriend and another girl he is very close too have all been killed.” Angie’s face dropped. “Not exactly for kids is it.”

“So I should be careful the next time I take my son into the newsagents,” Angie quite rightly asked.
“Not really, comics are more in specialist stores these days. However, if you are thinking of buying any comics for your kid make sure it’s the right line. In one comic you have the fun stories suitable for kids, another you have Spider-Man finding out his first love woman cheated on him with his greatest enemy and gave birth years ago. The first love who he accidentally killed.”
“Erm Ok… He killed his first love?” Angie asked a bit intrigued I think.
“Absolutely. In the film where Green Goblin drops Mary Jane off the bridge and Spidey saved her. That didn’t go so well in the comics. Gwen was thrown off the bridge but Spidey webbed her feet to stop her, only problem she’d hit terminal velocity and SNAP. He breaks her neck. She was dead anyway though.”

That’s when the conversation pretty much ended, it being closing time and all. While I don’t think we had a convert on our hands, I do believe Darren and myself managed to get somebody to at least respect the medium. Another victory for the good guys.

The Batman

We have a new Batman show on the scene. Let me start with, isn’t it about time Warner Brothers gave some of the other big heroes apart from Bats and Supes a chance. Now that’s over with, on with the meat of the issue.

I really like the intro. The visuals are perfect, exactly what was right with the Beyond cartoon and Teen Titans as well. The music is pretty cool and I’m not sure if it’s in the theme or just background music of the program but I definitely heard hints of the old 60’s tune done very well.

The animation is very slick. Like the Teen Titans cartoon it’s not in the Dini style. As mentioned in the Teen Titans rant, I’m sad to see the Dini era is over. I’ve come to terms with it now, and he’s having one hell of a swansong over on JLU. The fight scenes flow extremely well. They’ve also gone the route of what is coming standard these days and this is using CGI for vehicles, which personally I like but I know these things are love or hate.

I’m not sure why they’ve gone with the Bat-Wave. One, what’s wrong with the Bat-Computer? Two, It brings back horrible memories of the 60’s Batman, especially when backed up by the Bat-Bot. Truth be told I quite liked the suit, just not the name. The amping up of Bane required it, and the fact that got trashed was even better, just Bat-Bot?

Not sure why they went for the Batman Returns version of Penguin rather than the one that’s been used everywhere else. It’s a version that never really worked that well while the freaky looking mobster is so much cooler. This version of Joker isn’t great either. He’s gone from insane genius willing to do anything for a laugh to just plain crazy. Man-Bat was a terrible mistake. They’ve turned the tragic character into just another looney that Bats has to fight. Another tragic character to suffer from this cartoon is Mr. Freeze, yet another tragic hero which for some reason they seem to using the version from Batman and Robin and turned him into Arnold Schwarzenegger, a low beat criminal one at that too.

This makes the rest of the characterisation even stranger. Bruce v Batman is done perfectly, especially considering this is early career, you can believe this guy becomes the obsessed individual we all know, but right now there’s a much more blurred line where Bruce ends and Batman starts. Ethan Bennett is great character, I can understand going away from Jim Gordon when most people think of him as the old Commissioner, but why a totally unique character and not someone like Hardback Bock. Yin is good as well and a great foil to Bennett but once again why the new character when you could use Montoya or another from Gotham Central. Alfred once again is spot on.

Not all the villains were done badly either. Catwoman is fantastic and I think I enjoy this version of the character more than the original Animated Series’. Bane got a power upgrade and a slightly new look to match but apart from that is nearly a carbon copy of Bane of old.

All in all I think the show’s a bit of a let down. Despite the characterisation of the main cast and the animation it just fails on the other levels. Removing what was great about most of the villains kills it, and the bad names for the tech are a step backwards. I’ll keep watching it, but I’m not overly fussed now.

Worlds Finest!

Inspired by Chris and me watching the Batman episode "Girl's Night Out" while drinking.