nolanj713

Really liked the segment. You guys have good chemistry together, and the longtime comic fan/new comic fan dynamic works really well. I'll echo all of the Daredevil reccommendations above me, (Born Again and the Bendis/Maleev run are largely awesome) and also strongly reccomend the pre-Born Again Frank Miller stuff. It's the start of the darker turn for the character, with the Kingpin/Bullseye/Elektra stories, but there are also a lot of issues that are just straight up, fun, superhero stories. It's a nice balance between the different directions the character's taken over the years. The Kevin Smith run is also worth checking out; even if you don't like Smith, the art by Joe Quesada is awesome.

The show never explicitly states that J'onn is weak against fire. There's at least one instance where he's caught in a large fire, but at no point do they establish that it affects his powers. I always just assumed that they removed his major weakness from the comics to compensate for toning down his power level from the comic version. But you're right, he is very conveniently vulnerable to psychic attack as well.

Knightwing, I like your reasoning. Makes more sense than mine, anyway.

Great episode, guys. Both of Justice League and of World's Finest Podcast. Couple of comments: Mike, my take on the EM distortion being noticed in the alternate reality is this. The electromagnetic disturbance was caused by Vandal Savage sending the computer back in time, which happened in the "real" timeline. This created the alternate reality. As the alternate reality was an offshoot of the real timeline, however, timeline-altering events would still register in some way, at the appropriate point in the timeline. So for the alternate reality to ever exist, the distortion has to occur at that point in time, even though the event triggering it technically doesn't. It's a chronal ripple or something. Maybe that doesn't make any sense at all, but then neither does any time travel story if you think about it too hard. I actually always felt the bigger plothole in the first episode was "Oh, we probably aren't affected because we were shielded by GL's ring," which never really felt like a strong reason to me. Which is all forgiveable because it sets up such an awesome story. Second, the Blackhawk music. I'm fairly sure that I have heard or read that the (awesome) Blackhawk theme used here is a classic theme from the brief Blackhawks radio series. In fact, I think it's mentioned on the DVD commentary for this episode. A quick Google and Wiki search turned up no information about this, so I may be completely wrong, but I think there's a bit of history to that tune. I totally agree that the animation in the Blackhawks sequences is some of the best we see in this series. I haven't watched this in a while, but there's a shot in there that's a close-up of Blackhawk's face, strobe lit by his own machine gun fire, that I have always loved. Also, since it's relevant to the ongoing discussion, I freaking love the Human Torch homage. So cool.

I agree with Mike and James on J'onn's temptation issue. Once is fine, but after he knows it's all just an illusion it's annoying that he keeps buying into it. It's also fairly inconsistent characterization for a guy who is generally portrayed as highly intelligent and emotionally detached. Despite this, I do like A Knight With (Of? I can't remember which is right at the moment) Shadows pretty well. I think the freaking awesome Kirby riff in the Demon origin portion goes a long way with me, and I like the characterization of Etrigan throughout. On the episode Metamorphosis, I personally think that the episode's weakest point is simply its length. I think it could have been a decent enough half-hour episode, if they'd done it in JLU. Some of the action sequences weren't bad, but it gets so repetitive, and everything that's not action is kinda boring. If they hadn't been trying to fill two episodes, they could have had an average show. Sure, it would still be a stereotypical "new character clashes with established heroes until realizing they're on the same side and teaming up to fight the real villain" story, but at least it wouldn't drag. Looking forward to The Savage Time next week!

I have been looking forward to this one for years. Gun was a decent enough open world Western, but it was short and small. This looks to be so much bigger and better.

D.W., I think R'as could (and should) be a great boss fight. As James said, he's a formidable combatant. As he generally fights with swords in single combat, they could design a unique battle around that. On the other hand, I thought I was going to get a unique battle against Harley Quinn, with her bouncy acrobatics, so I definitely see your point. Really liked the segment. I have not played much of Chrono Trigger, and have not played Bayonetta at all. I now wish that I had time to play them both. You guys have good chemistry together, and I will be looking forward to future editions.

Really enjoyed the show, Megan and Des. I thought this was a great movie to review for your first episode, as reviews of awful movies are frequently more entertaining than reviews of good movies. Looking forward to more episodes.

I'm pretty sure that Robert Smigel wholly owns Triumph, and there shouldn't be any controversey there. I'm not sure how NBC owns "In the Year 3000;" Conan was doing the original "In the Year 2000" version in live shows with Bob Odenkirk in the late 80's in Chicago. A lot of Conan's old signature bits seem to have been retired when he moved to The Tonight Show. Did he ever do "Desk Driving" on The Tonight Show? I know the Masturbating Bear never showed up. And Pimpbot 5000? Have we even seen that in the last 5 years or so? I mention these because the article specifically mentioned them, but with the exception of a few classics, Conan seemed to be actively trying to create brand new ideas and material for The Tonight Show, and there's no reason to think he won't be able to successfully do so again on whatever network and timeslot he winds up with.

I, too, kinda like Mongul. He's definitely great in For the Man Who Has Everything. And I don't know if it's true, but he was allegedly conceived as a parody of Thanos, who was allegedly a straight knockoff of Darkseid (I think I read that on wiki a looooong time ago, and I can't find it now, so please correct me if I'm totally wrong). So if you just view him as a poor man's comedy Darkseid, even a poorly written, boring story can be made somewhat tolerable.