Monitor Duty

Play Champions Online for free!

In honor of its 1st year anniversary, Cryptic studios, the makers of CO, are offering 1 week free subscription to the game. More info here.

I will be writing my final review of the game soon, but in the meantime, why not try it out!

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The Doctor visits MIT

Either that, or its an MIT hack just in time for freshman orientation

I would have made a Dalek…

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Emil Hamilton is ruined, all right (Spoilers for old Superman book)

Spoilers, I guess, if anyone cares.

As I buy old trade paperbacks from Scott Beatty, it has allowed me to catch up on some comic books I wasn’t buying even when I bought comic books. (I haven’t been to a comic shop since Blackest Night ended.)

So, I read this TPB that was all about Ruin, a new villain who had lots of insight into Superman’s personal life. It is heavily implied (too much, really) that it is Pete Ross, but the ID was not revealed in that book. Ruin is at one point captured, but he kills all of the policemen in the paddywagon with him (gorily so; there’s blood everywhere) and escapes.

The story is, sorry to say, not all that good. I don’t want to buy another book just to see who it is, so I look up “Ruin” on Wikipedia.

It’s Professor Emil Hamilton. Now, this is a guy who held a handgun on a young “strumpet” in order to compel Superman to do his bidding in only his second appearance, but he was stressed from Lex Luthor stealing his work and I always had the impression he wouldn’t really commit murder. He did his time in prison and had been a friend and asset to Superman ever since.

Then he started believing that Superman was a drain on the sun and would bring about the death of humanity in only 4.5 billion years instead of 5 billion. That’s why he suddenly turned into a mass murderer.

If he’d turned against Superman because he thought it would reunite him with Ray Palmer, I’d have said he had a better motivation.

To go from kindly absent-minded scientist to a man willing to rip apart police officers with his bare hands just doesn’t seem that believable. And I think they only did that because he was a traitor in the Justice League animated series, where his actions made total sense.

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THE AVENGERS trailer! 1950s style!

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Avengers Assemble!

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My SKULLLLL!

Here’s the first movie that should be in the next MST3K boxed set.

My votes for the other three:

And for the box set after that one:

Here’s one of my favorite moments:

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Biggest educational time-waster ever

TV Tropes.  You get linked there to learn about a literary trope in television, movies, comic books, etc.  For instance, I’m writing about a female barbarian character, and in researching costuming I ended up reading about Chain Mail Bikinis.  This leads to what the Most Common Superpower is, and how this often involves a Victoria’s Secret Compartment hidden in a Cleavage Window, leading to Power Girl’s catchphrase, “My Eyes Are Up Here“.  And then you just start reading about super-heroines with Boobs of Steel.  And on every page, there are dozens of examples.  And… oh my gosh, it’s 4:00 AM and I haven’t written anything!

Apparently, I’m not the only person who finds TVTropes more addicting than… well, I guess “crack” but I wouldn’t be able to say from experience. I can say it’s AS addicting as Cracked.

P.S.  While composing this article, I ended up surfing the site for three hours before remembering to hit “Publish”.

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Family Guy: Easily Summarized

Family Guy: Then and Now.

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Awesome preview movie for DCU MMORPG

Oh yeah. I’m posting it. I can be a lemming if I try.

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I used to love comic books. Then Batman peed his pants.

Topless Robot’s blog gives the details:  Batman Peed His Pants.  (Language warning for the blog’s content.)

Kevin Smith takes one of the most awesome scenes in Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One” and has Batman recap it.  For the effect, Batman wired up some explosives.  One of them went off too hot and it caused Batman to pee his pants.

Now…if Batman was having an out-of-his-weight-class battle with Killer Croc or Bane, and the rascal punched Batman so hard in the gut that he lost bladder control… I might quibble that that is a little TMI for a Batman comic, but it also conveys the dirty tactics of the opponent or how tooth-and-nail the fight is getting.   If Batman was on stakeout for hours, perched on top of a gargoyle, and in his thought balloons he said that he needed a bathroom break, I’d be surprised that DC permitted such a reference, even though it shows his human vulnerability.  (After all, Superman processes 100% of what he eats, which means he doesn’t need to use the bathroom.) But recounting years later how he had an accident in his costume during one of his great set pieces?  Appalling.  Adam West is rolling in his grave.

But, what do you expect from Kevin Smith?  Sadly, his name has enough cache to generate sales even though his comic book writing is fanzine-level at best.

Over on Chuck Dixon’s message board, contributor DesScorp made this point:

Honestly, how far are we from someone on JLA monitor duty rubbing one out to pass the time? Or being caught watching porn by his relief? We’ve already had Speedy and Hawkgirl with after-sex scenes. How long until everyone realizes that these are no longer mythic heroes as much as they’re instruments of writers and artists self-fantasies? It’s like the very horniest fanboys have been handed the reigns at the major companies, and they think a scat joke would be just awesome in print.

It seems like Garth Ennis is the chief editor at DC a little more every day.

Frankly, there isn’t far to go on that front.  A similar scene has already played out.

Not just that Red Arrow and Hawkgirl were having sex, but Red Tornado (at the time inhabiting the satellite’s computer) was watching them.  When he told this to Kathy Sutton, his common-law wife, she said, “All these monitors up here and you don’t get porn?”

In the JLA comic book, this happened!

There’s been something I have wanted to say all year, and I’ve been holding back:

Comic books were better under the Comics Code Authority.

Censorship can chafe, I know.  But I now honestly believe it made people better writers because they had to find a way around sleazy shocks and low humor.

It’s dumb when you can’t show a dead body in a war comic; but drop the CCA and suddenly Gorilla Grodd is eating the severed limbs of superheroes while laying around on their piles of corpses, Black Adam shoves a gold mask through Psycho Pirate’s skull, Black Mask makes Catwoman’s sister swallow her husband’s gouged-out eyeball, entire families with little children are getting high-speed shredded in JSA, and Green Lantern Corps members get showered in a rain of hundreds of eyeballs from their dead relatives.  Restrictions on the portrayal of sex under the CCA may have made it difficult to even show Green Arrow and Black Canary having a physical relationship out of wedlock (as recently as 1986, they showed Black Canary sleeping on Ollie’s couch), but say good-bye to the CCA, and now under-aged superheroes are having sex in Pa Kent’s barn, Sue Dibny’s getting abused so graphically that it makes the attempted rape in Watchmen look quaint, and Superman comics (SUPERMAN COMICS!) now have a Kryptonian villain who has brutal sex with Earth women until they’re dead from the hours of punishment.  Red Tornado watching a couple have sex because he doesn’t have access to a porn channel is one of the tamer examples.

Maybe comics were never just for kids, but now they are not for kids.  If I saw a kid in a comic book store asking for a Superman comic, I’d have to alert his parents that they need to read it first to see if there are any women getting ripped apart in Preus’ bedroom.  I can’t tell you how sad that makes me feel.

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New podcast widget

I’m considering a different podcast widget.  What does everyone think of this one?

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For those who are sick and tired of Twilight,

Also, if you think Edward vs Jacob is bad as it is, Burger King’s getting into the act:

I never thought I’d say it, but I MISS this guy!:

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Scenes from the lost Babylon 5 Combat Simulator

Check out these videos of a Babylon 5 space combat simulator video game that, sadly, was canceled only a month or two before it was set to be released in 1999/2000. The special effects still look great.

Rats.

Since no official video game has ever been made, you can make do with an unofficial free game, “I’ve Found Her.”  There’s also a full mod of “Star Trek: Armada 2″ which converts it all to the Babylon 5 universe.

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The last (best?) Bunnies theater

It looks like Angry Alien has discontinued their Bunny theater, but they ended with:

EVIL DEAD II!

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Review: Toy Story 3 in 3-D

I’m 40 years old this year. “Toy Story” debuted when I was 25, and though I was no longer a kid, that film transported me back to the years when I would let my imagination run wild just like Andy in the movie.

Pixar immediately established itself as what the Disney brand used to be: a guarantee that the movie that followed would be visually impressive, thoroughly entertaining, well-told and family-friendly. They have yet to make a movie that wasn’t a superior film to most anything else made by Hollywood. Half of their films should have been Best Picture contenders if not winners.

“Toy Story 2″ was originally going to be a cheapo straight-to-video, second-rate cash-generator, as the Disney studio has been cranking out for the last two decades. (“Lady and the Tramp 2″? Really?) Pixar wasn’t all that interested in doing sequels…but as the plot came together, they fell in love with the idea, shifted gears and made a sequel that was as good as the original in story and better in terms of visuals.

“Toy Story” was about a child’s natural tendency to lose interest in old toys as new toys debuted, with a side-plot about the kinds of children who do not treasure toys. “Toy Story 2″ carried the theme a little further: that a child’s fascination with toys doesn’t last forever, and is it better to be treasured in a glass case or to be loved intensely for a limited time?

There is a logical flaw in “Toy Story 2″ which I only realized as I re-watched it this week-end. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t wreck the movie: it may be illogical, but the actions are driven by emotions.) The entire misadventure occurs because a damaged toy is being put on the yard sale and Woody tries to rescue it. Of course, rescue it from what? If it sells, won’t the penguin toy be off to a new home with someone who loves it the way it is? Isn’t that better than sitting on a shelf, un-repaired and gathering dust?

It turns out that this question is the entire theme of the third movie: What happens to the toys when the child becomes an adult? Should they be kept in the attic for a possible future generation of kids to play with, if the adult even remembers they’re there? Should they be handed down to someone? Given to a charity toy drive? Kept as an un-playable memento of childhood? Or perhaps, being in a glass case in Tokyo should have been given more consideration? How about winding up in a landfill, only to be dug up by Wall*E 700 years later?

(Spoilers ahead!)

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By the end of this film, I had tears in my eyes. I can only imagine how powerful “Toy Story 3″ would be to someone who was Andy’s age when the original movie came out.

As for the 3-D, I would say skip it…except that the short film “Night and Day” playing before it is a stunning example of what can be done with today’s 3-D techniques. Aside from it, the 3-D does little to enhance the film.

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Coming Next Summer

First, there was Avatar. Now…

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Voyage of the Dawn Treader trailer!

Fresh from its debut on Big Hollywood:

Chronicles Of Narnia 3

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Batman 3 and Superman reboot news

Batman 3 to Begin Filming in March 2011?.

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My toys! MINE!

This week, a three-year-old named Grayson stopped by our house. He came into our home office and spotted all my comic book merchandise from DC Direct and others atop the book shelves.

He said, “Can I play with those?” and pointed to all of my MIB stuff (Mr. Miracle and Big Barda, three different Elongated Men, the Metal Men figures, Sam the Eagle, Ernie Pyle’s G.I. Joe figure, a Talking Presidents Donald Rumsfeld, etc.).

And I felt really sad to be a forty year old man with a bunch of toys I won’t let out of their boxes.

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The Hobbit, Soviet style!

Here’s a link showing a Soviet era translation of The Hobbit, complete with illustrations!

Also included, a Russian TV production of The Hobbit!
As an aside, judging from the first vid, I never pictured Bilbo being the same size as Gandalf…

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