Stavros

The only danger the modern Arlovski presents is death by boredom. I'm left with no desire to watch him fight. In the case of Arlovski they couldn't put him into the title picture with only one fight left, he'd be given too much ammo for what are already rumoured to be troublesome contract negotiations. On top of that throwing Kongo into a title match is too much too soon. I'm not happy with Sylvia in that position either, but at least Tim has a recent win plus a history of fighting at the top level. If Slyvia beats Nog then the whole thing is going to hell, but I suppose at least there are interesting challengers to come.

OK, fair enough. I thought the contract was for 4 fights total. Thats not so bad then since Cro Cop beating a couple of guys on his way out goes some way towards justifying his hype and if he doesn't win it only helps the guys he's fighting. I can see Cro Cop vs Silvia, Mir & Vera being a good way to round out his current contract if they are looking to send him on his way. I can't imagine them keeping him on at his current price tag although if he's willing to fight and for the right price it would be very interesting to see him try to rebuild his rep. If he wins the three remaining fights I could see UFC wanting him to stay on.

True, but that won't stop me watching at least 4 films I really want to see this summer. Dr Johann Kraus, a german medium who was caught in a massive psychic event whilst communing with the dead. His body was destroyed but his ectoplasmic form survived and thanks to the BPRD he now occupies a suit that can contain him, otherwise he would dissappate. He can communicate with the dead and can use dead or souless flesh as a temporary body if his containment suit is destroyed. He really adds a great deal to the team in terms of investigative abilities because he can interview the dead. You should totally read the Hellboy & BPRD books. The last film didn't quite live up to my hopes but that probably just because the books had set my standards so high. Plus Rasputin is a really great villian. I really hope the next film deals with his spirit & Baba Yaga.

I'd rather see someone live up to thier hype and become a force in a now directionless heavyweight division than see another big name fall on thier ass. In fact there are several heavyweight matches coming up that will shape the division. Nog vs Sylvia for the title will hopefully make Nog into the UFC new heavyweight top dog, and Werdum vs Gonzaga will determine who Lesnar or Mir has to face on thier way up through the rankings. I'm glad that they finally got around to trying to shape that division somewhat. Before they were banking too much on Couture, now at least they are trying to maximise thier existing talent. I'm left wondering who Cro Cop's final opponant in the UFC will be. Do they want to test an upcoming fighter whose rep might be hurt by losing, or make some cash from a bout with another former top heavyweight who has sunk down the card. On top of all this where does Cheik Kongo fit in? Is he put in position as a potential spoiler again? A bout with Tim Sylvia has been mentioned. Plus you have to figure that Brandon Vera will figure in once he is ready to return from his broken hand. I'd agree that there is no megastar like Randy in this group, nor do I think any of them have to potential to rival him, but there are some interesting fights and I think that 2008 does not have to represent a slump in the heavyweight division.

Looks cool. My markout moment was when you see all the significant BPRD agents arrayed and they've added Johann to the lineup. All the need now is for Roger and Kate to turn up and the team will be complete. PLus Liz's fire is proper fire now, no the blue stuff from the original.

I really liked a lot of King Kong as well. I only hated all the scenes on the Island that were straight from a video game. I detested the over-done T-Rex fight and the giant insects deal. It just seemed like a totally unsupportable habitat if nothing else. I'd rather they'ed done thier best to make it real than make it a CGI spectacular. At that point is was more The Mummy Returns than anything.

"We award you the Nobel Prize for upskirt shots in a visual medium..."

Dude, its freakin' Hal Jordan. Every time he does his little lightshow and stands up to Batman I roll my eyes. No one else feels the need to do that, all he's doing is strutting like an emerald peacock. Give me John, Kyle or Guy anyday.

They look like free prizes from cereal boxes. Ohh, scary, the Mandarin eats lucky charms.

Its times like thsi I'm thankful that my brain resembles custard more than cranial matter.

Very true. King Kong was like Marlon Brando. Theres a true great in there somewhere under all that flab.

He might have emotional maturity but not quite physical maturity. If you look at your average 17 year old and then 20+ year olds theres a big difference, they fill out a lot more. I just don't see Batman being an imposing figure with Tim's current physique. He needs to fill out a bit in order too look the part, not least because he doesn't want to look like he's raiding his dad's closet for a halloween costume. Since a big part of comics is the visuals I think its important that he be allowed to get to the point where he really can fill the cape. I also think that Tim need more time to distance himself from his former stance of "I'll never be Batman", which he has yet to really rescind in the comics yet. to do the turn now would be too drastic a shift, it should be gradual.

My only problem with it happening sooner is that Tim's still quite young, and in comic book terms he should be at least 20 or so before he takes on the mantle of the Bat.

I'd say they should take another 10 years (realtime) to allow Tim to develop to the point where Dick was when he stopped being Robin and then you could have Bruce disappear for a few years completly, leaving Tim to guard Gotham. Tim reaches the conclusion that Gotham needs a Batman after some initial problems working on his own (related to the criminals lack of fear) and so he decides to take up the role, although his uniform would be closer to the future version seen in Teen Titans or possibly even head in a more Batman Beyond direction in terms of style (not tech-wise). I just think that down the line once Tim has left the Titans and the current father-son dynamic has truly had time to settle in to the point where its clear there won't be a Dick/Bruce style split then at that point Tim will be ready to truly succeed Bruce. Not saying that Bruce should be gone for more than a few years, in fact they could have Nightwing trying to track him the whole time. Then once he returns they could both be Batman, one takes Batman, the other Detective Comics. If Bruce had Greying hair once he returned it would also lend to the idea that Bruce isn't going to last forever, and that Tim is already a worthy successor. Tim's learnt to be the Batman rather than Nightwing who only ever learnt to be Robin from Bruce. If figure around that time the trinity could move on to the JSA (presumably because the elder statemen of that group have finally passed on) and the JLA can become all about the new top line heroes, who would be an interesting mix of a few current JLA and upcoming heroes. Plus having Nightwing alongside Tim as Batman? Awesome.

I missed the first two GSP/Hughes matches so this ones fresh to me. That plus Liddell/Silva and the prospect of Sokoudjou destroying Machida makes this show a must-see for me. Plus its on Bravo in the UK on Sunday evening and thats part of my existing cable package. Plus we might get to see Manny's prelim.

I think a lot of the early built is due to concern over the name of the film. The fact that it doesn't have Batman in the title means they need to put out an early campaign just to ensure the word of mouth has time to spread out amongst the general public. They are doing the right thing producing this much buzz, especially since the christmas period is usually boxoffice gold and the more people they can expose to promos for thier big summer film the better. I am considering going out into the mountains and freezing myself, but unfortunatly I don't trust my friends to be able to find me again. I'll just wind up fighting sea otters.

Thanks for clearing that up. Considering I fancy myself an expert on WWII history, I really should have known that. Thats OK, I don't expect any of you chaps to know that there was a war going on before December 1941.

Regarding The Blitz/ Blitzkreig. Blitzkreig was the overall style of fast-movng warfare that the Germans used during the 2nd world war. The Blitz is the term used to describe the specific bombing of the civilian population of Britain by the Nazis. The Blitz has become the common vernacular in the UK for this period of the War, Blitzkreig has a seperate meaning, even if it is the origin of the term.

I do like Knightfall but I can't trust myself to be objective in the case of Azreal due to my man-love for that character.

"Theres something there...sexual tension you can cut with a knife!"

Please start TT again with 50. You're missing out. McKeever is capturing the quality and vibrance Johns hasn't had since they got past the Titans of Tomorrow storyline. I wanted to quit with all that AA stuff too but I knew it was going to be short... Oh I started again, I fuckin' love Teen Titans. Its just that for a short time that storyline made me stop reading one of my favorite books that I've read in its entirity up until that point. I think I missed like two issues. I did dump WW totally though which was a shame since I'd quite liked it since OYL up until then.

Disassembled was an interesting event that really started Marvels current giant calender event trend. Of course the reasoning behind it was to turn the Avengers into the Marvel Justice League but at least the story itself was strong and I can't complain because pretty much everything Bendis has done with the Avengers team since has been pretty cool.

Spider-girl used to be a good little series with a nice array of bad guys but its long since outlived its usefulness. Frankly I was amazed to find that its been Tom Defalco writing it all along, I was sure that it was someone else who was working on it up until about 2004. I pretty much stopped getting this book just before the switch to Amazing. It used to be filled with good art and cool characters, it wasn't overflowing with other heroes and the high-school aspect wasn't all played out like it is now. Its just upsetting to think that this was one of my favorite books around the 30-40 issue mark and now its just dead to me. It didn't used to be so lifeless. I'm a big fan of DC-style character dynasties and the MC2 universe did a great job with some of these. Darkdevil in particular was a great concept, combining the child of Spider-man Clone Ben Reilly with the spirit of Daredevil and Ghost Rider's demon Zarathos, it created a great character with his foot in hard-crime, supernatural events AND the mainstream-style Spiderman mythos. Granted the storyline they gave him for his own series blew chunks but it was a good concept, and knowing his true nature and seeing his character interact with his cousin May was very interesting, given thier shared history. I'm going to go back and find out if that stuff holds up now.

Tough call. I started reading comics about the time tha the UK editions were publishing some AOA. I glemaed enough from it that I understood what was going ton, although the only character I really got to know was Wolverine. I can't vote for it because I didn't read enough. Call me crazy, but I'm going to say No Man's Land. Its a great premise and it basically built the bat family up into the cohesive unit they were until War Games. It had some superb standalone issues from a variety of characters, it never turned its focus too wide to deal with the problems of the individuals involved. It stuck around for a long time, something that a lot of concept event like House of M don't do. On top of all that all the fallout made sense and lead into further stories in the DCU, like Luther becoming president, Renee Montya becoming significant and the death of Sarah Essen. I'm not going to claim its a masterpiece but its quite solid and makes good use of a quite a few characters that are personal favorites of mine. I can't vote for anything else because all the rest of the events are so massively flawed. There was no big Marvel or DC event since I started reading that didn't have significant negative fallout because they stifled the creative flow of great books or killed random characters or, like anything with the title "infinite", was just mindbogglingly over-complicated. WWH lost too much momentum but the build and concept were very solid. House of M was a great alternate reality story but too much about it made little sense. Civil war was totally packed with logical inconsistancies and basic errors in editorial oversight. Everyone reading wound up supporting cap regardless even though his stance made little sense and his opposition to the act was pathetically ineffective. DC comics can't do big events and often their mini-events are pretty damn bad (Amazons Attack actually made me abandon Teen Titans AND Wonder Woman and every other book with a tie to that series that I'd been reading). There are parts of the Sinerstro War that I've liked but its nothing amazing. We'll see what the Skrull was will bring to the table. I must say they are doing well so far because I just saw my first live Skrull and it actually was a HOLY SHIT! moment. EDIT: Of course if we are talking strictly big mega company-wide events then its House of M, but grudgingly.

Obviously this wasn't the ideal reality for everyone, but it did put a lot of characters in the roles they might see themselves best serving in that reality. Peter Parker became a celebrity, a beloved movie star, and really there wasn't much more he was going to do either way. After the spider bit him he wasn't going to become some big shot politician or soldier, he was always more likely to become a showman. Wolverine sees himself as a righteous protector and someone who goes out of his way to bring down the bad guys by any means. Being a top agent working from the helicarrier would put him in the best possible position to assume the responsiblity of safeguarding the innocent. Most of the people on his team in the house of M have a similar temprement, where they arn't exactly white knights but they do have a strong internal moral compass. In caps case he achieved everything he wanted to or expected to during his natural life. He wouldn't have dreamed of being lost before the end of the war, or being frozen in ice. He just wanted to serve his country to the best of his ability and he always did. I think you are looking at the House of M as being a reality in which everyone got thier hearts desire, which wasn't the case at all. It was just the best situation Wanda could put together where all these people still fit into the overall dream of that world.