elnino14

Finished Watchmen. It's awesome.

Watched The Batman/Superman movie. Probably the best animated Batman movie I've watched yet. It's funner, quicker-paced, and ultimately more enjoyable than the other 2 I've seen thus far (Subzero and Mystery of the Batwoman). The interaction between our two leads was great but even better was the interaction between our two villains (Luthor and Joker). It was an all around good time and didn't take itself too seriously like the Subzero movie and gave me a reason to care unlike the Mystery of the Batwoman movie. Glad I actually watched this one. 7/10. The final animated Batman movie left is Mask of the Phantasm, which unlike the others I have seen before but it was when it first came out on VHS, and it may be a little while before I get to that.

Sometimes I feel like my problems pale in comparison to others. And I promised that I'd never pull this again, but here I am bitching to a forum. But anyways, I feel like shit. The short of it, the girl I've been dating for 4 months says she's unhappy and needs to take a break from me. I'm not even sure what that means outside of "I need some space." I feel liked I've fucked up pretty bad and I could have prevented things. I feel like my family's actions are driving one of the better things in my life away. I really like this woman. It just really sucks because I was really excited to spend more time with her during the holidays since I won't be working that hard on my master program material...but now I'll probably be spending much of it alone. I'm not exactly sure what to do... On a lighter note my friend of 20 years is getting his B.A. degree tomorrow, I'm very proud of him.

I am so giddy for this movie.

Watched Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman. I'm quite saddened because a show that was pretty fucking amazing at points, it ended up with some pretty shoddy movies thus far including this one. While it's a step up from Sub-Zero...it certainly far and away of what they were capable of on the television show, and it's even far and away from the New Batman Adventures episodes alone. By the time the big reveal of Batwoman came, I just didn't care. And the rest of the movie was action, that was actually kind of boring. 6/10 We'll see whether this trend continues as the Batman/Superman Movie is next. And mind you, I've never seen an episode of the Superman animated show, and I've always disliked the Superman as a character (just a bore, to me) but I did think that the first two Reeve Superman movies were quite good.

I watched Batman and Mr. Freeze in Subzero and man did it feel long. It really wasn't that great and there really wasn't enough story for this to be a movie. While I really appreciate the Mr. Freeze character, I personally feel he's much better in smaller doses than what we received here. There were some cool action scenes, especially the chase and the ending sequence, but besides that, the film is incredibly lackluster. 6/10

Finished It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Seasons 1 + 2, Absolute blast. Really love the show, it's smart, hilarious, and doesn't take itself too seriously. Can't wait for Christmas money to buy Season 3.

Read Thunderbolts TPB vol.2 Caged Angels I absolutely loved it. Just loved it. Sad to see Ellis go. Great dialogue, great characterization, some amazing fight sequences, the mood of chaos comes through incredibly well, and ultimately this book makes it fun to cheer on the bad guys. Ellis took a group of B-rate characters I knew nothing about (outside of Normy and Bullseye) and made one of the best Marvel books in a long time. Probably best book in the current Marvel U not written by Brubaker. I've heard bad things about the team that took over during the Invasion. But am hearing good things about the team that picked up post invasion. So the question is should I pick up the Thunderbolts secret invasion tie-in TPB to fill in the gap so I won't be lost (mind you I could care less about the Invasion), or should I just say fuck it? 9.5/10 Next up: Watchmen!

It kind of makes sense because the symbiote promotes feeds off of anger and makes it stronger. But how it was done was just all wrong, Eddie's downfall wasn't good at all, his anger while valid, just wasn't there to want to start killing people. The turn was way too quick, the intensity that should have been there wasn't there at all during the Venom/Spidey fight. The voice actor for Eddie, while a fine Eddie, made for a terrible Venom. The idea that Venom worked for Tombstone felt like a complete afterthought. It was all just wrong. Nonetheless getting one or two characters, (I felt Dr. Octopus' was a bit off) wrong for the 12 or so they got right is pretty good.

Finished Spectacular Spider-man, Season 1. What an awful last couple of episodes. I really enjoyed all the episodes to varying degrees up to episode 11, but those last two episodes were pretty awful. Episode 12 was boring, really boring, and could have been cut in half, I really didn't like the extended origin story, pretty cool concept of Peter fighting an inner battle against the symbiote but terrible in execution. The last episode had Venom and it sucked, I really liked the Brock character and I thought they did a great job with him but after the symbiote connected it just...sucked. The season was soooo good for about 8 episodes or so and it slowly started declining in quality. Overall, the animation is really good, the fight choreography is some of the best I've ever seen and actually rivals the films, and the show can be as great as the best of them, but it really left a bad taste in my mouth with the symbiote storyline in the last few episodes. Hopefully season 2 gets it back on track. Although, they've ran through so many villains already I don't know where they can go.

I watched it on Friday night, the theater I was in had no more than 20 people watching this film. I had a rough couple of weeks, so I really wanted to watch something where I can turn my brain off for a little while. I really enjoyed this. It's not a good movie by any means, but I knew what I wanted going in: massive body count, gory as fuck kills, some cool looking action and it delivered those in spades. I was very satisfied in the "quality" of the movie. There were some small character moments and Ray Stevenson really looks like the Punisher, plus the movie felt like a Ennis comic book (which I've only read one issue of, but I can imagine what'd it be like after reading Preacher) everything from the gore, the swearing, and the absolutely over the top villains and henchmen. I knew what to expect, I knew what I wanted, and I had fun.

So I finished episode 9 of Spectacular Spider-man (THANKS SUAVESTAR!!!). I have to say I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Although it's a bit early to tell, it's definitely better than the 90's spider-man series. This is one really does take all the classics and makes them feel new and fun again. The show is doing an excellent job juggling multiple subplots at once and providing supporting characters some real depth. Although I still think the pace they're moving is still a little breakneck in terms of villains, and I worry about the second season's material. I love the serialized style of this show. The fight sequences are unbelievable and head and shoulders above any other show I've seen. The quality does seem to be dropping a bit, as the Goblin reveal was lacklustre and they could have done more work teasing other characters as Goblin. But it's been an incredibly satisfying show thus far. Only four more episodes left and already the introduction to the symbiote has occurred.

This is one of the main reasons I want to get a next gen system (leaning towards PS3 but also considering X-Box 360) but me being in school full time, in the master's program and without an income, means I have to wait until at least next year.

So I started watching Spectacular Spider-Man today. I saw the first two episodes. Definitely agree on Norman Osborne, the voice acting was excellent. I actually thought the voice acting all around was good. And who'd a thunk it, Robert Englund as Vulture. Nice. Probably the worst thing about this show thus far, besides the character's faces looking just plain weird, is I think they're moving way too fast through the rogue's list. Yes Spidey has an extensive one, but still, the first episode was pretty heavily packed, especially for a pilot. I'm a huge fan of the villain's designs thus far. I really liked the Vulture's design which seems to be taken from Marvel Knights Spider-man, and I liked Electro's design. Also this was probably the best incarnation of Electro in a cartoon, ever! I also really dig the multiple character developments with Eddie Brock being a really nice guy, Norman being built up as slimy from the beginning, Doc Ock and already making an appearance, and Doctor Connors getting some development in the second episode. This is shaping up to be a really good and more importantly FUN show.

Read X-Men: Messiah Complex I liked it, there's a lot of things done right. The cross-over has a main plot (finding the baby) that they always go back to keeping the story on track the whole way through. The sub-plots all in some way serve the main plot. The characters are pretty clearly split into good and bad in the beginning before messing with the gray areas later (especially with Gambit, Mystique, Cable, and Bishop). The book is never boring, and really action packed. There's one main thing that I didn't like, I felt that it lacked depth. It felt like there was nothing beyond the plot, that it was all on the surface. The character moments were few and far between and the plot ultimately drove the characters instead of the characters being the driving forces behind the plot. Overall: It's a rather entertaining read. I don't know all the characters, and I understood practically everything going on. 8.5

I'm actually really excited for this movie. I think out of all the Marvel movies thus far I've marked out the most for the X-men series. Probably because I grew up on the X-men cartoon. I still think that X-2 is my favorite Marvel movie to date. I also really enjoyed X-3 and thought it wasn't that bad, certainly it wasn't as good as the second film, but it wasn't bad by any means, it suffered from the same things that Spiderman 3, too many ideas stuffed into one movie. Gambit looks good, and really people are complaining for nothing, especially considering that it doesn't make much sense for Gambit to be in this movie in the first place, and the only reason they put him in is because fans love him. Anyways, by the time the movie is over, nobody is going to care about Gambit because of my man Deadpool.

Suavestar how about hooking me up with the Spider-man show? I've been watching It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia season 1 (my buddy bought the dvds for my b-day way back in August but I never got a chance to watch them because I was finishing up Batman The Animated Series) and I've laughed out loud at least once per episode every episode thus far. It's incredibly offensive, but also downright hilarious. Perfect for me.

Read Penance: Relentless (for the first time) and Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters (again!) Thunderbolts is awesome. I just really love it. I can't wait until the second volume gets here from DCBS. Penance was one of the more intriguing characters that spun out of Civil War for me, and I really loved his arc and character transformation during the Frontline books. So of course since I already loved Ellis' Thunderbolts, I figured I'd pick this up as well. To be honest, it's not bad, it's just completely underwhelming. It doesn't match Ellis' work on Thunderbolts, but it does manage to come close in certain scenes...especially ones involving Tony Stark/Norman Osborne confrontations. I guess my biggest problem is that it doesn't really add anything new to the title character, his thirst for vengeance and redemption has always been there, and thus even when the story is over it still feels all superficial.

Just finished Warren Ellis' run on Stormwatch, I started it a couple months ago. It includes: Stormwatch Vol. 1 #37-51, Stormwatch Vol. 2 #1-11, WildC.A.T.S / Aliens #1 I have to say, as much as I liked it, I didn't love it. It was sometimes hard to follow, a lot of babble at times. But I enjoyed it, it had a mix of politics, superheroics, and subterfuge that I quite enjoyed. I felt that vol 2 was much stronger than his run on vol. 1. Vol. 1 was stand-alone stories and the final arc in vol. 1, I didn't particularly enjoy. The second volume had 3-issue arcs with a better mix of character and plot, from the first arc of volume 2 I was hooked.

Ohhh, can I put in my 2 cents: It seems to me that Marvel is impossible to follow lately with all of the Secret Invasion crossover shit that's going on. And I never understood DC universe. But I'll throw in my two cents anyways. The Killing Joke is an excellent place to start. Other Gotham related stuff: Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns and Year One are both excellent reads. And although I haven't read them yet I've heard great things about The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, The Man Who Laughs, and the recently released Joker. That's about as far as my DC knowledge goes. As for Marvel the things that seem to stand alone the best are: Amazing Spider-man (although from what little I've read of Brand New Day, I haven't liked). Captain America (generally one of the most lauded books around and I read the first 25 issues, it just wasn't my cup of tea...I must admit, the Brubaker Omnibus is an excellent starter though) The only things I keep up with though are: Daredevil (Love it, you should start at the beginning of the Marvel Knights section, or at least read Kevin Smith's arc which is vol 1, guardian devil before jumping into Bendis' stellar run starting at vol. 4: Underboss and just keep reading into Brubaker's good run, also although I haven't read them YET Frank Miller supposedly also does some splendid stuff here as well) Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-men (read the first hardcover/vols 1 + 2, it's awesome, and it's pretty good in terms of newbie-ness) Peter David's Madrox and X-factor (not entirely self-contained but not bad at least up through vol. 4, also need some knowledge of current X-events to read) Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts (the first volume is great, I haven't read the second volume but you need some knowledge of the Marvel universe to read) As for other X-stuff, Messiah Complex was good, and my favorite X-men story of all time you should find as it totally feels like 90's cartoon is: God Loves, Man Kills (probably my first graphic novel/comic and I was very much like you, no knowledge of anything beyond what I'd seen on tv cartoons). Also the Ultimate Universe: Ultimates 1 and Ultimates 2 - Excellent. Ultimate Spider-man is also very very excellent and very good for newbies. I don't like anything else I've read in the Ultimate line, it's too inconsistent. Ultimate X-men had some decent arcs although I don't fucking remember any of them, i think it's the short stint that Bendis wrote. Ultimate Fantastic Four had a couple decent books called Crossover and Frightnening I think. But I wasn't a huge fan of what I read in those series. What I've been interested in lately are the graphic novel series and Marvel runs that have already been completed. I just finished Preacher which was excellent. It really depends on who you like and what kind of book you're looking for.

Finished the Kill Point over the weekend, a little bit underwhelming. But I think everything is going to be underwhelming for a while considering I just finished The Wire less than a month ago. It's a decent action mini-series. The characters are deep enough to provide just enough substance to the show, but there are still plenty of flaws that bog it down. Leguizamo puts in a fantastic performance, the best I've ever seen from him. Definitely worth a watch.

Preacher vol. 9: Alamo So I finished this trade and series for the first time. I have to say it's probably the most impressive graphic novel series I've ever read. It was able to disguise plenty of high-brow concepts and subtexts into low-brow situations, violence, and humour. It crossed genres multiple times but nothing it did seemed out of place. I especially liked this volume because it wrapped up everything in a nice little package, all dangling plot threads, all open messages, everything seemed to come full circle. Although there are many characters I don't like and complained about often: Arseface and Starr, in particular, Ennis has a point with every single character involved in the series. 10/10

Brock is the new champion. The fight lived up the hype in my opinion. The undercard was pretty decent as well. I enjoyed it.

I watch the first 2 episodes of a little mini-series called The Kill Point, it stars John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg. It's surprisingly pretty good and fun (especially considered it was made by Spike TV). Not incredibly deep like a lot of HBO shows...but it's a fun action show. I had never heard of it before...but thus far I'm glad I'm watching it. Hopefully the next 6 episodes don't make me regret renting it.

Preacher vol. 8: All Hells A-Coming I'm almost finished with this series...and I'm quite excited. It really is all coming to a head nicely, and seems to be wrapping up any loose ends before the big showdown between the major players. This edition really resembled how well Ennis has crafted his characters. Every issue in this edition is driven by the characters themselves. Of particular interest is the back-story of Tulip and more information on just how rotten Cass really can be. For most of the characters this is the calm before the storm (Starr never catches a break). Personally I really can't stand some of the supporting characters, Starr has just been turned into a big joke, instead of the complete bad-ass he was painted in his flashback issue, I never liked Arseface, and the two Sexual Investigators make a re-appearance that is pretty forgettable. I know they're all meant to be humorous and it is, but sometimes it's overbearing. No what really drives the book for me are the major characters. Ennis has put a lot of depth to the point where I actually care about what happens to their relationships. Also the supporting characters who were just played for laughs, such as Amy, Jody, T.C., Custer's mom have made more of an impression on me than the ones who were just played for laughs. Probably the worst part of this trade is the last issue, where it clears up some of Jesse, Tulip, and Amy's criminal career in a flash back. It feels somewhat misplaced just like the Starr flashback and almost all of Vol. 4 (the minis and one-shots). It's not a bad issue by any means, it just feels very inconsequential and anti-climactic. It helps the reader understand the relationship between Amy, Tulip, and Jesse but it comes after Jesse and Tulip part to the Alamo, which just doesn't I don't know work entirely well for me. Still love this series. 10/10