Best of the Year time again

The year is winding up and it's time to starting thinking about the best "stuff" of the 2013.

It's been a long time since my last post but, in my defense, the laptop got moved to another room and I haven't felt like moving it.

So, to make up for lost time, here's a picture of Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson...

OMFG!  Kimmie's rap on Hell's Kitchen may be the most embarrassed I've felt for someone on a reality show in a looooong time.  It was a performance worthy of American Idol auditions!
At least's she's proved two things this season.  She can't cook and she can't rap.

I like to read books, but my attention span (or lack thereof) and, for some reason, reading makes me sleepy almost instantly,  so in the run of a year I don't get a lot of reading done, besides comic books that is.  Well here we are and it's July 1st (Happy Canada Day everyone!) and I recently decided that I'm going to read 20 books before 2012 is over.  Shouldn't be hard right?  Well so far I have only one book in the "finished" pile, Patrick deWitt's Sisters Brothers (it was a book club book at work...there are only two guys in our book club, me and another guy, and we're both notorious for not reading the books).

I've started the first A Game of Thrones book, but it's slow going and I'm halfway through the second of The Strain trilogy, The Fall.  Wish me luck.  I'll try to use my lil ol' blog here as a check-list of sorts.

So Katie Holmes has filed for divorce.  How on Earth did she manage to slip away from her alien captors long enough to see a lawyer?

Anyone else looking forward to Ted being released this weekend?  We're long over-due for a good comedy.  I mean, hell, 21 Jump Street was months ago...shit, feels like forever!

A few weeks back at E3, the folks at Netherrealm Studios announced an all new, no Mortal Kombat characters this time, DC comics fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us. The demo featured Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn and Solomon Grundy.
I’m sure it’s safe to assume all the other DC characters from the DC Universe Vs Mortal Kombat game, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Deathstroke, Joker, Lex Luthor, Catwoman, and current Justice League members, Cyborg and Aquaman, will be among the twenty or so playable characters the game will feature. That gives us a grand total of 14 cats to play with. Who else would I like to see...or should I say, who else can I get my ass handed to me with?

10) Jonah Hex: In the pre-Crisis, pre-52 DC universe, Jonah met Batman (and I think Superman) and he eventually he was flung into the future to be a outer space bounty hunter or some shit like that. In the new 52, Jonah appears to have set-up shop in late nineteenth century Gotham and even crossed over into Batman’s recent Court of the Owls business. Jonah (movie none withstanding) has always been a badass, and I have no problem having an out of time cowboy fight DC’s legendary heroes and villains!?
Couple of six-gun attacks, a knife or tomahawk attack and heck, throw a whip and/or lasso move in there
and Jonah is good to go.

9) Lobo: To the best of my knowledge Lobo hasn’t made a new 52 appearance (BTW if DC really wanted to go out on a limb on the established DC character that hasn’t appeared yet will be gay idea, they would have Lobo come out instead of Alan Scott...just sayen’) but in the old DCU, Lobo did his fair share of arse-kicking, even going toe-to-toe with the big blue boy scout, Superman on a couple of occasions.
Lobo could have some really cool moves. Hooking opponents with his chain, some kind of BFGun or ramming them with his chopper come to mind.

8) Zatanna: What’s a fighting game without a hot chick in fishnet stockings!? A piss-poor one!
She could have all sorts of magic "Whammy" attacks and hearing her say the spells backwards would be cool.

7) Hawkman: A super-strong guy with tons of good medieval weapons and wings. Need I say more? How has Hawkman not been in a DC fighting game already? The guy screams fighting game. He also screams, "I’m one of the most misused and abused characters this side of Aquaman!" but I digress.
Good old Hawkman could beat people about the head, neck, chest and shoulders with his mace, or slice ‘em up with an nth-metal sword.

 

6) Black Adam: Before Flashpoint ruined the history of the DC universe, Black Adam was one of it’s best bad guys. Like Deathstroke, he’s not even a "bad guy" all the time. He’s just a badass who doesn’t take shit off of anybody, even Superman. (BTW, if you’ve never seen Adam and Supes duke it out, pick up Action Comics #831. I’ll wait here until you get back).
Adam’s attacks could mirror Captain Marvel’s, but with a slight edge of pure hatefullness to ‘em.

5) Nightwing: You played Arkham City. You played the Nightwing DLC and it was great. With his twin escrima sticks, most of Batman's toys and acrobatic moves Nightwing would be a ton of fun in a fighting game.

4) O.M.A.C: The bull in the China Shop of DC Super-heroes. Every fighting game has, no needs, a character like this. No finesse, just charge in head-first and start punching. Plus the new 52 O.M.A.C. is a really cool looking character, who could have some very sweet looking combos.

3) Green Arrow: Not a Justice Leaguer in the new 52 and maybe he looks a little too much like the Green Arrow from the Smallville TV show, but Oliver Queen is still a mainstay in the DCU. He was also my favorite character to use in the old SNES Justice League fighting game. GA could have a variety of moves very similar to what Hawkeye has in Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, PLUS the world famous boxing glove arrow. Actually, the boxing glove arrow is non-negotiable.

2) Talon from the Court of Owls: If you haven’t read Court of Owls stuff that’s been running through Batman since issue #1, you’ve been missing out. SPOILER ALERT! With Lincoln March revealing himself as the final and maybe most powerful Talon (although I prefer the first Talon we say, and from the looks of it, the most deadly, William Cobb...he kicked the supreme sh*t out of Bats), he’s instantly become a Batman villain for the ages. This guy was built for a fighting game. Featuring and acrobatic/martial arts, fighting style, much like Nightwing, and matching Batman for size and strength. Of course, as a Talon, he has throwing knives, a sword and all sorts of surprises up his sleeve. Get this guy in the game!

1) Booster Gold: And finally, my number one choice on this motley list, my favorite DC character, Booster Gold! Booster has quietly become one of the DCU’s main characters. When Batman, Supes, and Wonder Woman, took a year off after Infinite Crisis, it was Booster Gold that lead the way for a new age of Dc heroes. His own solo series as the protector of the time stream as great and really showed what Booster is capable of. Now in the new 52, under Batman’s tutelage, Booster is the leader of Justice League International.
With his power suit and flight ring, Booster would feature, super strength, flight, a force field and force blasts, not to mention a wicked self-deprecating sense of humor. The only thing missing from the new 52 version is Skeets, who could have been used as an attack himself.

I know...I know...I didn’t include some heavy hitters in like Darkseid or Mongul on here, but dudes like that I think of as "bosses" to fight at the end of a single player game.

Whew...I can think of a few more that I would like to have on that list, but I doubt there’s gonna be much more room then that for characters. Now Marvel, time to drop the "Vs Capcom" from the title and make a straight up Marvel fighting game, my gaming life would be just about perfect.

 

So as I'm sure most of you now know, the high profile, not yet seen in the New 52, DC character that will be reintroduced as being gay, is none other then Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern (yes, the one who's weakness was wood...I guess that makes more sense then ever now). 
I have no problem with gay super-heroes, but this seems like a bit of a let down.  I wouldn't exactly call the Alan Scott Green Lantern a "high-profile" DC character.  In fact, I'm sure that there's a lot of average comic fans that don't even know just who the hell the Alan Scott is.  Jeez DC, if you're gonna say it's a character that everyone is familiar with, actually make it a character that everyone is familiar with!
I will thought, give DC props for really are going all out with reinventing the Earth 2 heroes.  For instance Jay Garrick (the Earth 2 Flash) is no longer the inspiring mentor that the original Jay Garrick Flash was (and man is his costume BAD!), but instead is a twenty-something loser. 
Let's hope that despite this build-up to only be let down, is only a misstep and the Earth 2 series can build on what was a really good first issue (even tho...SPOILER ALERT....their version on Superman was killed off in very sorry ass fashion.

So Tyler Perry is going to be Alex Cross, taking over the Morgan Freeman (after the role was turned down by a much more qualified Idris Elba). 
It's been awhile since I've read an Alex Cross book (more bad ones then good ones IMO) but I sure as shit know that I didn't picture Tyler Perry.  In defense of the movie, the rest of the cast looks great though, including a very jacked Matthew Fox.  I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I'm not gonna hold my breath for a good flick.

Tyler Perry...goddamn.  What the hell were they thinking!?

Ron Burgundy's "Anchorman" Announcement

So if you go see The Dictator tomorrow night (I think it was tomorrow night) you get to see a Anchorman 2 teaser trailor.  Shit and I was planning on seeing Avengers again. Maybe I can sneak into The Dictator's theatre long enough for the preview.

Just sitting here taking a look at what books come out this week.  Let's see from DC we've got Nightwing #9.  Not normally a book I get, but Nightwing is fair square in the middle of this great Court of Owls business running through the Batfamily of books.

Pretty slow week from Image, IDW and Dynamite, but Marvel...wow.  We've got some Avengers versus X-Men books (with the Avengers movie probably making more money then all the X-Men movies combined, I'd say the Avengers really win, no matter what the books say).  We start with Amazing
Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth #1...UNION JACK IS ON THE COVER! I love the Union Jack!

Next is Avengers #26.  Sounds like the Avengers have a traitor in their midst's.

Avengers Versus X-Men #4.  Can it finally be!?  A Marvel "Big Event" that's actually living up to it's billing!?

AVX: VS #2.  And a third and final A vs X book.  Juggarnaut-Colossus takes on Spidey and Captain Amercia (I'm sure) beats the crap out of Gambit.

Fantastic Four 605.1.  I'm still on this book and I'm not sure I know why at this point.

Hulk Smash Avengers #3.  Loving the retro look of this series.  Haven't actually had time to read the first two issues tho.  Jade Jaws, don't let me down!

Uncanny X-Men #12.  Looks like a Thing and Namor rematch (after Ben took round one in AVX: VS #1.

And last but not least Winter Soldier #5.  It's Winter Soldier against the very sleeper agents his brain-washed ass trained many years ago.

Jaysus!  With the stack I have to catch on from last week and a stack of Free Comic Book Day books, I may need to start skipping sleep.

God damn if I don't love this theme song!

Avengers Vs X-Men Round Three Review....SPOILER ALERT KIDS!!!
I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't really sure about this mini-series.  Marvel has burned us year after year with these big "events", especially last year's Fear Itself.  Such great potential.  Had a great start and a lackluster finish.  So far Avengers Vs X-Men and it's side mini AVX: VS have been great!
Anyway, I'm not here to bitch about old stuff, I'm here to review the latest issue of Avengers Vs X-Men.
The issue starts off with Wolverine waking up after recovering from a severe Phoenix Force burning from Hope Summers.  Spidey is there to catch him up to speed as to what happened while he was out (BTW..am I the only one that loves the Spidey/Wolvie team-ups we've been getting with the Avengers!?).
We cut to all the heroes on both sides just milling around as Cyclops has surrendered or so we think.  Logan shows up just in time to let Cap know it's a trick and the X-Men teleport away.  Meanwhile Hope wanders the streets of San Francisco (cue the always awesome Streets of San Francisco theme music!), builds herself some sort of mechanical gauntlet and then see's the Phoenix Force in her reflection.
Back to the Avengers.  Cap and Logan ask one of Logan's student's, Rachel Summers, to help track hope, but she claims to have no luck.  We then learn that Rachel is working for Cyclops (I'm out of the loop with X-Men stuff, but isn't Rachel also a daughter of Cyclop's, sent back in time?).
Cap splits the Avengers up into teams to search for Hope.  He takes Sharon Carter, Giant Man and Wolverine fly off with Cap to the Savage Land, only all four them won't make it there.  Cap dresses down Wolverine for attacking Hope in the previous issue and says he won't let Wolverine just kill Hope to stop the Phoenix force from taking her over.  AWESOME fight ensues (GO CAP!)!  With a little help from Giant Man (I'm sure Cap would have won, but who's got time for a long fight, Cap boots Wolverine out of the Quinjet, to, what I assume is the Arctic snow, below.  A very pissed off Wolverine gets up and in classic Wolverine style, starts trudging his was to take out Hope.
Great issue in the series.  In fact I haven't been let down yet. 3½ out of 5!

Just got back from the Avengers movie.  Wow!  Seriously. Wow!  I literally lost my breath on three separate occasions.  For the three or four people left in the world that haven't seen it yet, I don't want to spoil any of it so I'll keep my mouth shut, but I assure you, it is the must see movie of the year (so far). 

So get off your couch and trek down to the closest moving picture house and see this bad boy already! 

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!!!!!  Get out to you local dealer, grab some free books and shit, buy a few too!!!!

Growing up in the 70s & 80s, there was no shortage of "cool" shows and character to like, love and be fanatic about. To name just a very few: The Six Million Dollar Man, Jaws, The Hardy Boys, Star Wars, Happy Days, Evel Knievel, Bruce Lee, Pinball machines, Scooby Doo, Captain Caveman, Spider-Man, Superman, KISS, Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, Grease, The Hulk, Battlestar Galactica, David Cassidy and the list goes on and on.
Again in the 80s we had He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the Atari 2600, G.I. Joe, Alf, The Backstreet Boys, Rubik’s Cube, Back To the Future, Music Videos, E.T, My Little Pony, Batman, The Cosby Show, The Smurfs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Madonna, Indiana Jones, Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, Pac-Man, Knight Rider, Van Halen, The Thriller album, Strawberry Shortcake, The A-Team, Boy George, The Goonies, Nintendo and another list goes on and on.
What will the kids (aka young shits) of the first couple of years of the 20-double-digits look back on, with nostalgia, in twenty or thirty years from now. I mean most things these days don’t seem to have much of a lifespan (and yes, I’m sure someone was saying the same thing about the stuff I liked back when I was a kid) or a lifespan at all. That being said, there are a few things I think will survive the test of time to and become the darlings of hipster doofeses and lonely 20 something guys and gals in the future. So I give you my list of five things, our kids will be buying on Ebay 2032 (and yes I know, we’re only a couple years into the 2010's so but this is what we’ve got so far)
Beiber -  Yes, Justin Beiber. My mom, whom I can hardly imagine she even listened to them, still has a Beatles serving tray. 20 years from now, moms will be regaling their young daughters with tales of Beiber. I’m sure by then, he’ll be hosting a game show or dead from a drug overdose and the young daughters of our daughters will be all like "Gross mom! That guy’s skeevy (or whatever they call old douchebags in 2032)!"
Xbox 360/Playstation 3/Nintendo Wii -  Given how far video game systems have come in the past 20 years, I can only imagine what kids (and adults) will be gaming on in the year 2032 and on. No matter what, it will definitely look different.
Gamers all over clamour for old NES and Super NES systems and the three I mentioned, like these two, are still consoles. In twenty years, the home gaming console will be long gone and replaced with something else I’m sure, so these three bad boys from the last days of bygone era, will be hot tickets.
Spongebob Square Pants -  Actually if you were doing a list of things that will be retro cool from the early 2000's, twenty years from now, SB could go on that one too. Eventually the water will drain out of Bikini Bottom and Spongebob will final "be ready" to go off the air, only to resurface 20 years from now on a Retro Cartoon channel for grown men to watch and remember a much simpler time of eating cereal and watching Spongebob any day of the week on an all-day cartoon channel (in my day we had to watch our cartoons on Saturday morning and we liked it!).
Mixed Martial Arts - Now I’m not saying that mixed martial arts will be gone by the year 2032, but I’m sure it’s popularity, like boxing and professional wrestling before it, will have long since waned. If there’s one thing about people, we always want to see a new way for guys to beat the hell out of each other. Who knows what that will be in 2032, but it will probably a couple of steps away from MMA. Hell the way things are going, we’ll be in Hunger Games mode by the (speaking of the Hunger Games, if this was a list of "Six" it could easily be the Hunger Games/Twilight taking the sixth spot.
Nickleback - For much the same reason as Bieber, Nickleback will survive the test of time, mostly as a punch line, but so have bands like the Bay City Rollers and Poison. Get used to the idea that you will NEVER in your lifetime, get rid of the sparsely talented lads from Vancouver cuz, after say, oh a ten year lull, they’ll be back on oldies stations and nostalgia tours.

Comic book day but much too tired to read any of my new books, but CANNOT wait to dig into Avengers Vs X-Men Round 3.  Review tomorrow...I hope.

Just listened to the new Alabama Shakes CD a few times.  Not bad, in fact at times, if you weren't listening carefully you'd think you were listening to the White Stripes, but I don't think it was for me.

Alabama Shakes - Hold On (Official Video)

My first blog.  Crap....now what???  Well I'm watching Shaun Majumder, Every Word Is Absolutely True on HBO Canada.  So far so good.  John A. MacDonald's head from the bench on the corner of Queen and Richmond made an appearance during the opening credits, so that's cool.