elnino14

First off, I've never read the story it was based off of and I don't care for much of the DC universe. To be honest it was so long ago I don't remember much of it. What I do remember is that I couldn't stop falling asleep for one thing. I thought the ending was stupid. And overall I just really didn't get the point of it all, I didn't understand the purpose of most of the heroes even being in the movie especially since most of them were little more than extended cameos. I wasn't too into the art style either. Overall I remember being rather bored by it.

52 vols. 3-4: I liked it, but I didn't love. As someone who was basically using it as a primer to the DC Universe, like me, it doesn't work nearly as well. The book kind of moves along at a break-neck pace, whether you understand what's going on or not. I often didn't, especially with the outer-space stuff and time traveling stuff. I really liked some things, I thought the Black Adam story was the crux of the book and really hooked me while the Question/Renee Montoya relationship was also excellent. But then again there were other stories that just felt plodding. A really good book, but I'd suggest someone to be some-what familiar with the DC Universe before taking the plunge. 8/10 X-men: God Loves, Man Kills: I can't read Claremont anymore and I still have another book left of his that I haven't read (Mutant Genesis). This was one of the first books I've ever bought and I've read many times over. It's honestly the one that stands the test of time the best in my opinion. It's more adult than a lot of the other books and really deals with some tough themes. I've always felt that Claremont has been able to write themes and express themes in his book, but dialogue and character DEVELOPMENT have always comes across as stilted. This was no different, people don't really change in his books, except for one villain in this book. It's a classic, but there's some trouble there. Also after Mutant Genesis, I think I'm done reading Claremont. 8/10 Daredevil by Bendis vols 4-7 and volume 9: This is probably one of my favorite runs on a Marvel/DC character...ever. And it's these volumes where Bendis really breaks the mold, keeping within the legacy of Frank Miller by making a whole world around the Murdock character including multiple villains and supporting characters and shit even the city is a living breathing character. It's fantastic. Also this is the part of his run that really goes away from the typical superhero, putting Murdock through a ringer like none other, and with no clear cut method out of the shit hole. Somewhere in volume 9, you can see the transition to a more tyipcal superhero fare and I think that was kind of the point for Bendis. Volume 9 is where Daredevil sees the light. I honestly truly love this book and Bendis' initial run on Daredevil helped push DD into one of my favorite superheroes of all time. Yes I went back and read Frank Miller's run (which is also tremendous and Bendis takes a lot of ques from Miller). Maleev takes a different take on DD than Miller did, while Miller used a lot of long vertical panels to help portray the city as a character, Maleev doesn't do that, Maleev uses a lot of dark shading and noir style cues, but it's usually claustrophobic and helps portray the claustrophobia that Murdock feels as his world comes crashing down on him. Of course there are splash pages to emphasize major turning points in the story or major victories, but usually art helps drive the dialogue, quick cuts, and more panels. I love this book and I'm re-reading it because I never touched Brubaker's run (even though I own all of the TPBs released) and I'm trying to re-familiarize myself with the events and the awesomeness that occured while Bendis and Maleev were doing the book. 10/10 Total: Comic books: 9 Trade paperbacks: 75 Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Volumes 1, 2, and 3; The Authority by Ellis/Hitch/Millar/Quietly Volumes 1 (Relentless) and 2 (Under New Management) and 3 (Transfer of Power); Batman: Year One; Batman: The Long Halloween; Planetary vol 1 (All Over the World and Other Stories), vol. 2 (The Fourth Man), and vol. 3 (Leaving the 20th Century), Planetary Crossing Worlds (The Crossover specials); Planetary 19-26; Batman: The Man Who Laughs; Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear; RONIN; JOKER; Deadpool #1; Punisher Max vol. 1-4; Penance: Relentless; Thunderbolts by Warren Ellis vol 1-2; Thunderbolts: Secret Invasion, Astonishing X-men Hardcovers volume 1 and 2, Daredevil: Born Again, Y: The Last Man vol. 1-10, The incredible Hulk: Tempest Fugit, Marvels, Daredevil: Redemption, Daredevil: Yellow, Hard-boiled, Hulk: Dogs of War, Spider-man: India, R.I.P.D., Daredevil: Love Labors Lost, District X vol. 1, Walking Dead vol. 1-8, Deadpool vol. 1: Secret Invasion, Superman: Red Son, Batman and Son, Justice League International vol. 1, Bullseye's Greatest Hits, Marvel 1985, X-men Children of the Atom, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Batman: Hush vol 1-2, Batman: Nine Lives, Walking Dead vol. 9, 52 vol. 1-4, Batman: Gothic, X-men: God Loves Man Kills, Daredevil by Bendis vol 4-7 and vol 9.

Started Shadow of Destiny on the PS2, we'll see if I can get through it this time. Was deciding between this, Mercenaries, or the MGS trilogy (never beat the third and am interesting in playing the fourth...someday down the line? I went with Shadow of Destiny because I needed something a bit lower key then usual. My biggest problem isn't how dated it looks, it's that the main character is and sounds like a f*cking idiot. Come on.

Wanted to watch some animated comic stuff that I hadn't seen before, watched Doctor Strange and Next Avengers, neither one was all that great. Pretty comparable to the previous animated Marvel films (i.e. Ultimates 1 and 2, Iron-Man). Doctor Strange had some really great animation and I like how a lot of the mystical elements were done. Mind you, I'm not familiar with Doctor Strange at all, but I liked the character arc he had in this story. But it wasn't amazing and not nearly as enjoyable as their most recent efforts in the Hulk vs. dvd. Next time around I'll catch up on the DC animated DVD films, which I haven't been enthralled with either to be honest. Didn't like Mystery of the Batwoman, Batman: Subzero was boring, Gotham Knight was passable, and New Frontier was terrible (outside of Green Lantern's origin). Honestly the only animated films I really enjoyed thus far from either company were Return of the Joker (which is amazing) and Hulk vs. (which is really fun especially the wolverine portion). OH and the Superman/Batman movie was good too, even if it was just a three part episode from the Superman series. Anyways, still have Wonder Woman, Green Lantern: First Flight, and Mask of the Phantasm in my que so they could always turn it around and suprise me with something awesome (like they did with Return of the Joker)

Last time I was in here I was working on Spider-man 2. I beat that game rather quickly but honestly it was a really fun, but dated game. I love the swing system, the combat was sufficient, at times good, and the game was just right in terms of difficulty. After that I finished the Sly series beat Sly 2 and Sly 3, which took me most of the summer to do. Sly 2 was a step up from Sly 1 as they opened up the world a bit, had a little bit more free roaming and added variety by adding more playable characters but still kept the core charm and core characters the same along with the excellent villains. The third one just went overboard, sometimes I felt like you barely play as the title character, they expand the character list by so much that the story gets lost at times due to the sheer variation of characters and play styles. Still a great game that's fun, but I think Sly 2 is the best entry in the series. Next up...really I don't know.

Season 4 is not the best but it has a great final episode. I really liked Season 5 and thought it was a step up from Season 4 which is arguably one of the worst seasons of the series which is still better than 99% of everything else that's on. I love the Sopranos. Been watching the anime Berserk (on Episode 7 now), which at times I think is awesome but mostly reminds me why I don't watch anime anymore. Also X-men: Evolution which I started a couple of months ago. I'm near the end of Season 3 which was pretty damn good and honestly, this series just got better and better as it went along (although it started terribly in Season 1, was average for most of Season 2, but the by the final episodes of Season 2 it just got good borderline awesome. Should finish season 3 soon and then I stop the youtube videos and move to the Marvel site for season 4.

Batman: Gothic - checked this out at a local library. Really liked it. I haven't read too much of Morrison's newer stuff (outside of Batman and Son which I thought was okay) but I could see that Morrison has always likes to bring in a sort of supernaturaly element or at least suspicion of one (which Gothic did a stupendous job on). I'll be picking up Morrison's entire Batman run when it's all made available in trade which is taking entirely too long. Walking Dead vol. 9 - I constantly jump between not wanting to continue and to continue on this book. Volumes 4-6 were great and then just when I thought Kirkman was losing steam he flips a switch and makes the book awesome again. This time around though, I really feel it's getting stale, and I've got vol. 10 coming in, I think that's going to be the deciding volume of whether I stick around on this book any longer. 52 vol. 1-2 - I know relatively nothing about the larger DC universe. In general my knowledge is pretty much Batman, so in saying that I probably didn't love this as much as others did but the concept intrigued me and I stayed around for the ride. It's also super fast paced blockbuster, because it's condensed in terms of time and you rarely stick too long with any one character. I like some of the stories, usually the smaller ones that focus on the relationships the characters have like the Montoya/Question story and the Black Adam/Isis/Osiris story. The larger more sci-fi stories were the ones that I got lost on, the Lobo/Animal Man/ and two other characters whose names escape me story often lost me. This book though really does a good job of mixing the large-scale plots with the smaller scale plots, and the a dash of characterization all the way through. Dibny's story really hits all of these with his initial state of intense mourning to the later spiritual journey. The only ones that seem to be going nowhere are the Steel/Luthor/Supernova storylines. I'll finish the book, because it's enjoyable ride although sometimes the book's lulls really hurt that, but it's not often enough. Total: Comic books: 9 Trade paperbacks: 67 Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Volumes 1, 2, and 3; The Authority by Ellis/Hitch/Millar/Quietly Volumes 1 (Relentless) and 2 (Under New Management) and 3 (Transfer of Power); Batman: Year One; Batman: The Long Halloween; Planetary vol 1 (All Over the World and Other Stories), vol. 2 (The Fourth Man), and vol. 3 (Leaving the 20th Century), Planetary Crossing Worlds (The Crossover specials); Planetary 19-26; Batman: The Man Who Laughs; Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear; RONIN; JOKER; Deadpool #1; Punisher Max vol. 1-4; Penance: Relentless; Thunderbolts by Warren Ellis vol 1-2; Thunderbolts: Secret Invasion, Astonishing X-men Hardcovers volume 1 and 2, Daredevil: Born Again, Y: The Last Man vol. 1-10, The incredible Hulk: Tempest Fugit, Marvels, Daredevil: Redemption, Daredevil: Yellow, Hard-boiled, Hulk: Dogs of War, Spider-man: India, R.I.P.D., Daredevil: Love Labors Lost, District X vol. 1, Walking Dead vol. 1-8, Deadpool vol. 1: Secret Invasion, Superman: Red Son, Batman and Son, Justice League International vol. 1, Bullseye's Greatest Hits, Marvel 1985, X-men Children of the Atom, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Batman: Hush vol 1-2, Batman: Nine Lives, Walking Dead vol. 9, 52 vol. 1-2, Batman: Gothic

Blade Runner: The Final Cut Lots of good ideas but it doesn't pan out as well as it should. Still don't like it. Still slow as molasses. Oh and in terms of the theatrical cut, I can't even remember any of it so it's hard to compare. I'll take the word that this is the best cut though.

I wouldn't call the few exclusives it has a ton. You're right, I should specify, the exclusives on the PS3 fit my style more. While everybody loves Halo, and it is a great game, I'm just not big on First person shooters, I'd rather take the third-person action and platformers games like the Ratchet and Clank game, Infamous, MGS4 and Uncharted and the God of War series. Although I admit, I would miss X-box exclusives like Gears of War series and Mass Effect (and Netflix), to me the PS3 games has games that fit my style more. BTW, I played challenge mode of Gears of War 2 with my friend and it's absolutely stupendous, so yeah it's one of the ones I would buy. Though for me Halo, and First Person Shooters in general (like Resistance) are overrated. Speaking to Knightwing, You're missing Mass Effect and Valykria Chronicles on the X-box and PS3 respectively, I've heard nothing but good about those games.

with the two being the same price now I'm very much leaning towards the PS3. Just seems like a better console overall, sure there's no online watching (no Hulu, no Netflix) but as a gaming console it's better, hopefully sturdier (we'll see how the Slim does because I remember hearing the PS2 slim having a whole bunch of problems), and there's a whole ton of better exclusive games. Wi-fi compatible right out of the box, instead of of paying $100 for wireless and 50 for Live. So I'm very much leaning towards that. Now I just need to fucking graduate and find a job already.

Played it for about 1 1/2 hours yesterday. My friend bought it for his 360 and I went over and played it. I really liked it. It's a lot of fun. The game varies up the gameplay quite nicely, giving you combat sections, stealth sections, detective sections and huge set pieces where you can approach the situation whichever way you want. The pacing is a little bit off, sometimes there were long 15 minute stretches where I didn't do anything really. The intro is way too long and overextended. But it was a fun ride, hopefully I'll be able to get a chance to play it in the privacy of my own home and I can pay more attention to everything, instead of having people talking around me and to me.

Watched Casablanca for the first time last night.

Marvel 1985, Read this in a Barnes and Noble while waiting for my glasses prescription to be updated. I liked it, at the same time, I'm very glad I didn't buy it. The first half really does the concept justice as it feels like a horror film, the villains feel like real true villains, and the art and writing makes them very frightening. Also the plot doesn't have much to it and doesn't need much to it because it's portrayed from a child's perspective. But as the book went on, it needed an explanation and motivations, and then it fell into very traditional comic book lore, getting very stupid by the end of the book. 7/10 X-men Children of the Atom, I really really like this book and have read it a half dozen times. It's still great, I think. It's got a very retro feel without being overly wordy like Claremont can be. It's got retro style art that still looks modern. It's also got a great story, sure it didn't really need telling, but they did a good job telling it. 8/10 The Dark Phoenix Saga, This was my first reading, so it's really out of the time context. Claremont is really wordy especially in the last super sized issue and to be honest the saga was very very hard for me to finish because of the super sized issue. The book is considered one of the best X-stories of all time. It really does go a long way to prove that, Wolverine gets center stage in one issue showing how bad-ass he is, Jean becomes Jesus in her self-sacrifice, Cyclops becomes more caring than others, and the whole story is done on a slow burn. Half the issues in here don't even feauture Dark Phoenix but are just the build up to her appearance. And to me, for some reason I like those issues more. But overall it's a fun, if a little outdated in writing style, ride. Batman: Hush vol 1-2, I never understood this book. The more I read Jeph Loeb's critically acclaimed Batman works the less I like them. But while I loved Dark Halloween on my first read through, I didn't even like this on my first read through. It just wasn't that great to me. It seems like a very kinetic put as many people as we can into the book, with a mystery twist in the end, and tie it to Bruce Wayne's childhood. It's a great concept and it does feel like a blockbuster. But I don't know, it just seems off to me. Even Batman feels off to me. No doubt though, Jim Lee's art is fabulous. Batman: Nine Lives - First-time read here, liked it, a little confusing on the story side, but overall I liked the noir-feel and I think Batman excels in this mood and tone. Dick Grayson as a PI is really fun, as well as the narration, everything really fits in quite well. Like I said the story lost me a few times, but I liked it all anyways. Total: Comic books: 9 Trade paperbacks: 63 Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Volumes 1, 2, and 3; The Authority by Ellis/Hitch/Millar/Quietly Volumes 1 (Relentless) and 2 (Under New Management) and 3 (Transfer of Power); Batman: Year One; Batman: The Long Halloween; Planetary vol 1 (All Over the World and Other Stories), vol. 2 (The Fourth Man), and vol. 3 (Leaving the 20th Century), Planetary Crossing Worlds (The Crossover specials); Planetary 19-26; Batman: The Man Who Laughs; Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear; RONIN; JOKER; Deadpool #1; Punisher Max vol. 1-4; Penance: Relentless; Thunderbolts by Warren Ellis vol 1-2; Thunderbolts: Secret Invasion, Astonishing X-men Hardcovers volume 1 and 2, Daredevil: Born Again, Y: The Last Man vol. 1-10, The incredible Hulk: Tempest Fugit, Marvels, Daredevil: Redemption, Daredevil: Yellow, Hard-boiled, Hulk: Dogs of War, Spider-man: India, R.I.P.D., Daredevil: Love Labors Lost, District X vol. 1, Walking Dead vol. 1-8, Deadpool vol. 1: Secret Invasion, Superman: Red Son, Batman and Son, Justice League International vol. 1, Bullseye's Greatest Hits, Marvel 1985, X-men Children of the Atom, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Batman: Hush vol 1-2, Batman: Nine Lives

Word on that, I've had trouble deciding myself. I'm going to wait and see what Microsoft does, they've got to phase the X-box Pro out sooner rather than later now. But this looks very very appealing, free online, free wireless, not a ton of hidden fees is outweighing the netflix and X-box live feature for me. Although the fact that most of my buddies have Boxes makes it much easier on me in terms of borrowing games. AHHHHH FUCK! If X-box drops the Elite to $300, packages it with a couple games, and makes Live free, they'll have me swinging the bat for their team.

Watched it, it was excellent. I certainly suggest going into the movie without reading reviews. I want to write more, but I think the less you know about the film the better. Anyone interested in Sci-fi should go watch it.

I'm looking at specifically getting an X-box with a hard-drive. They have good deals on Elites that come with two games, hopefully they continue that with two new games in the fall. Yeah most games are on both systems, but the couple that are on PS3 are really good (Like Uncharted mainly).

So I'm pretty close to breaking, I've told everybody that I've given up on next-gen gaming and have refused to buy any next gen system because I'm just not as interested in video games as I used to be. I still get tons of playtime out of my PS2 and (re)discover great games all the time, such as Spider-man 2 and the Sly Cooper Series. There's still a few games that I want to play, and a few games that I scour the net to buy before they disappear completely (The Warriors, and Psi-Ops). But I'm getting very close to the wire. Here's the status, I've got about $100 in Best Buy Gift Cards, and about $100 in Best Buy Reward Certificates, which knocks out about half the price of a new console. I don't have a ton of money yet, and I'm looking for a job, but when I find one along with a Fall Price Drop, one of my rewards is that I want to buy myself a new console soon after. The question is which one, and I'm talking X-box or PS3 at this point. I don't have enough interest in the Wii. So here's a bit of my personality when it comes to gaming and the next gen era: My favorite genres are third-person action games and platformers. Not a huge fan of the First person shooters, not a fan of extremely long games which really hurts because I like RPGs but can never get through them and I'm not a huge fan of online gaming. My multiplayer style is that it's always funner to play with people around you than by yourself against people you don't know. Man I miss the N64. If the game has a great story that's always a plus for me. In terms of the X-box, I'm really attracted to the netflix compatibility, as I am a subscriber to Netflix. It's also relatively cheaper in price on the face. I know that it costs $50 bucks for yearly online subscription, also no built in wireless adapter that I have to pay for. So honestly I don't know how much savings I'd have. Also 2 of my friends have a box, and if I ever want to play with them online, I'd need a box too, it also helps because I can always borrow games from them as well for single player experiences. Some going against the Box is that there's not a ton of exclusive games that I really want. The only one I can think of is maybe, Gears of War. Also Red Ring of Death is pretty commonplace. As far as the PS3 goes, there's a ton of multimedia features, the online component is built in and free, but probably not very good. There's a blu-ray player. Also there's a lot of exclusive games that I'm interested in: MGS4 (never played 3, but I did really love 1 and 2, outside of Raiden), Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, and Infamous. But I'd have to buy any and all games I want, there's no borrowing, which means a lot of money I don't have. Also the console is so freaking expensive. Also say anytime I want to play online, I won't be able to play with my buddies, ever. So kind-of summary: X-box vs. PS3 Netflix vs. Blu-ray Backwards compatible (cheap X-box games) vs. No backwards compatibile Not too many exclusives vs. Many exclusives Yearly Live Subscription vs. Free Internet usage Expensive but not exorbitant vs. Exorbitant pricing So help me out?

Even though I'm kind of getting tired of the Walking Dead as a comic series, I'm all for an adaptation, plus Frank Darabont is involved and that's a huge plus. I haven't touched any of AMC's cable shows yet (they're on my netflix que) but I've heard good things about them.

Watched the PPV, heres what I thought: You can also get it here with all the bells and whistles: http://thegeekdive.blogspot.com/2009/07/wwe-review-night-of-champions-2009.html Night of Champions 2009 Chris Jericho/???? vs. Priceless: Really one of the angles that I found most intriguing just flew out the window. It was a rather lame pick, don’t you think. Sure it caught me by surprise, I don’t think anybody really expected the pick to be who it was and I really didn’t like it. But Big Show brought it in the match showing that he can mesh well with Jericho as a partner and that he can play a good beatdown or cleaning house segment. The match was a little slow as to be expected, Big Show and Jericho dominated at first, showing off some fun little tag-team moves that involved Big Show using his size to pick up, throw, or whip Jericho into their opponents. The match was a tough one to play out, because both teams were essentially heels, but they noticed that the crowd favored Jericho, so the match played out as if Jericho/Show team were faces. The ending was hot, fast-paced, and exciting. While it wasn’t a great match…it was a decent start to the show, with a hot ending, and a showcase for the new make-shit team. ** ½ CM Punk Interview: Punk cuts another fantastic snobby, preachy lecture on the crowd cementing himself as one of the best heels in the company. Hopefully they keep it up because his character is becoming awesome and more multi-dimensional. Christian vs. Tommy Dreamer: A pretty sufficient match, Christian looked like he led the match, and thus was able to keep it pretty high intensity and nicely paced. It really was never boring, but just over-all inconsequential (which is how I’ve felt about the ECW brand in general). Nonetheless, Tommy Dreamer was able to keep up with Christian and they had a nice match with some fun reversals sprinkled throughout to show the knowledge the two have of each other. ** ½ US Title Six Pack Challenge Melee of Doom: So I guess it’s a new rule that you’re only allowed to be in one title match each night, because they swiftly took Big Show out of this match and replaced him with Primo. Primo makes more sense in this match anyways. This match involves lots of cool MOVES~! and not much else. They played up a couple of rivalries, mainly the Colon feud and the Swagger vs. MVP rivalry, but the match at its core sense was a quick-paced spotfest. There were a couple of times where the timing was off, but overall it succeeded in what it set out to do, providing a quick-paced high octane, balls to the walls, lots of near-falls match-up. Fun but no story and ultimately inconsequential. ** ¾ Orton cut an interview: that added nothing to the PPV. Thanks, Orton! Melina vs. Michelle McCool: Michelle McCool has grown on me over the years, she’s obviously gotten better in wrestling, and in terms of charisma and character, she’s also become one of the prime divas in the WWE. Honestly nobody ever expects much from these women’s matches, and they’re used primarily as a cooler between more prominent matches, but this match was a fun little ditty where both women tried to go beyond the norm in terms of typical Women’s matches. It doesn’t have the best pacing and the crowd doesn’t give a shit, but still if you watched it, you got some decent timekiller. The basic story is that, McCool really gets rocked in this match for most of it, and only makes small cheap shots throughout, barely getting through the match by the edge of her nail. It puts over both women, Melina as a confident, maybe overconfident, passionate wrestler, and McCool as the sniveling cheap heel. ** ½ Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. John Cena: I found it very strange that this was going on so early, I was almost positive that this would have main-evented the evening. The match itself was actually better than I expected and while not incredibly innovative, it told a fun story and I had no clue where they were going to go with it. Ultimately the story that started off was pretty typical for triple threat matches, John Cena and Triple H uniting to take on the greater evil of Orton, Orton banking on the two faces to get in each others way, which happened a few times, Orton taking advantage every time it happened. What was different was how the match ultimately came around full circle with Cena and HHH ending up on the same side again. Since this has never really happened before it forced a new, creative ending. It’s quite confusing, but it also adds intrigue to see how they proceed from here, probably something lame like a rematch with another referee but we’ll see. Admittedly the best parts of the match were during the second half with HHH and Cena going at it, I’ve grown to hate Orton because he paces his matches so slowly, and in this match, every time he got involved the pacing slammed on the brake and almost caused a wreck. It’s really grating on me, but HHH and Cena kept up the entertainment factor with a ton of reversals and Orton did his part sneaking in quick moves near the end. Overall, a decent match with a fun story, and a creative, although inconclusive, ending. *** Mickie James vs. Maryse: This wasn’t very good at all, and that’s too bad, because I had thought Maryse was better. She impressed me a couple of times in a couple of matches before. But this one was not meant to be. Mickie James seemed to be on but Maryse’s timing was off, her maneuvers looked ugly, and the pacing was all over the place. ½ * Dolph Ziggler vs. Rey Mysterio: This was Ziggler’s test match, if Ziggler impressed here WWE management would continue his big push. For me, Ziggler didn’t impress. Certainly he was okay, but you just don’t have okay matches with Mysterio. The match was slow paced, and Ziggler used a ton of headlocks and full nelsons, slowing the match way down too often. The high spots were high and they had a little story going where Ziggler was getting some huge moves, each one bigger than the one before, but nothing seemed to work but in between all that was boredom. By the end the crowd only popped a couple of times and popped for the typical finish. Yay? I wouldn’t say Ziggler is done, he’s not, he just needs a lot more experience and hopefully with that experience he’ll become more like Edge and less like Randy Orton. ** ½ CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy: I was really looking forward to this match, as not only did it have a great build to the match, it also had two great characters and a couple of entertaining wrestlers. Unfortunately, the show had killed me by this point, and things didn’t seem to click in this match, at least not as well as they should have. Punk I felt was excellent though, his mannerisms, his cocky attitude, it all fit his persona. As the match got further and further along and Hardy kept hanging in there, Punk was less cocky and more shocked and desperate. It was a decent match with a nice groove (I don’t agree with the ultimate decision) but it took a little bit to get going. That might be to how dead the crowd was, or how much lackluster “stuff” came before, but it just was not as good as I was hoping. *** ¼ But wait a minute…. REWIND: So after cooling off, I gave this match a re-watch. It held up much better without all the crap that preceded. It was better than I had first said. It wasn’t nearly as slow as I first thought and the pacing was actually just right. They didn’t seem rushed and really took their time to tell the story. Punk is still awesome in the match, he’s working double-time and really taking to the coda that less is more. The slaps, the jeers, the awesome facial reactions, all that mattered much more than MOVES~!. Cm Punk really is a huge boon in the company as he gets over characters and the story of the match, with this one telling the story of a cocky, overconfident CM Punk trying to prove a point. But it takes two to tango, and Jeff did fine as his usual consistently entertaining self, pulling in huge hope-spots and perfect timing on the comebacks. The end-game was okay, not the greatest, I actually would have liked Much better than I initially thought. *** ¾ Final Thoughts: I didn’t like this show, it was just tough to get through. If you really narrow it down there’s only one match that’s worth watching and that was the main event. The rest of the card was offensively bad, it wasn’t good either, just bland and kind of boring. Some of the other PPVs this year have had not so great cards but one or two really good matches. Ultimately, I wouldn’t recommend it. 5/10 Top WWE PPV Matches of 09: 1. HBK vs. Undertaker (Mania 25) - **** ½ 2. Jericho vs. Rey (The Bash 09) - **** ¼ 3. Raw Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 09) - **** ¼ 4. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (Extreme Rules) - **** 5. Edge vs. Cena (Backlash 09) - *** ¾ 6. Mysterio vs. Jericho (Judgment Day 09) - *** ¾ 7. CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (Night of Champions 09) - *** ¾ 8. Mysterio vs. Jericho (Extreme Rules) - *** ½ 9. Smackdown Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 09) - *** ½ 10. MITB (Mania 25) - *** ½ 11. CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (The Bash 09) - *** ¼ 12. Christian vs. Jack Swagger (Backlash) - *** ¼ 13. Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. HHH (Night of Champions 09) - *** 14. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (Royal Rumble 09) - *** 15. CM Punk vs. Kane (Backlash) - *** 16. Royal Rumble (Royal Rumble 09) - *** 17. Edge vs. Big Show vs. John Cena (Mania 25) -*** 18. Shane McMahon vs. Randy Orton (No Way Out 09) - ***

True, but you never know what McMahon might do when he's got heat with you.

Haven't seen the Macho Man one, but everyone likes it. It's a series of matches with very little biography. So if you're looking for Macho Man matches than it's a great dvd. Also they didn't bury Macho Man, like they did to the Warrior.

Some more dvd sets that WWE is considering doing, you know, because they don't take enough of my money already... Source: 411mania.com/wrestling You know, I just can't keep up with their freaking releases. I still have yet to buy the following: Steve Austin Ric Flair's second set Macho Man Edge Not to mention the ones I own and never got a chance to watch, Not to mention the ones don't plan on buying and just renting from Netflix. Mr. Perfect Starrcade Saturday Night’s main Event Stars of the 90’s Allied Powers: The World's Greatest Tag Teams Not to mention what's already in the pipeline to come out this year: Rise and Fall of WCW Smackdown 10th anniversary Batista My goodness WWE has been on freaking fire with these dvd sets.

Walking Dead volumes 6-8: The book is really consistently good and just when I was starting to get tired of the book, it pulls a fast one on me. I wasn't a huge fan of the two societies arc but it was still good. I wouldn't put it up there with modern day classics like Preacher and Y: The Last Man, because frankly I think the book lacks long-term vision. 8/10 Bullseye's Greatest Hits: Middling in terms of quality, some of it was good, some of it was bad. Overall it was highly unnecessary really. Total: Comic books: 9 Trade paperbacks: 57 Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Volumes 1, 2, and 3; The Authority by Ellis/Hitch/Millar/Quietly Volumes 1 (Relentless) and 2 (Under New Management) and 3 (Transfer of Power); Batman: Year One; Batman: The Long Halloween; Planetary vol 1 (All Over the World and Other Stories), vol. 2 (The Fourth Man), and vol. 3 (Leaving the 20th Century), Planetary Crossing Worlds (The Crossover specials); Planetary 19-26; Batman: The Man Who Laughs; Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear; RONIN; JOKER; Deadpool #1; Punisher Max vol. 1-4; Penance: Relentless; Thunderbolts by Warren Ellis vol 1-2; Thunderbolts: Secret Invasion, Astonishing X-men Hardcovers volume 1 and 2, Daredevil: Born Again, Y: The Last Man vol. 1-10, The incredible Hulk: Tempest Fugit, Marvels, Daredevil: Redemption, Daredevil: Yellow, Hard-boiled, Hulk: Dogs of War, Spider-man: India, R.I.P.D., Daredevil: Love Labors Lost, District X vol. 1, Walking Dead vol. 1-8, Deadpool vol. 1: Secret Invasion, Superman: Red Son, Batman and Son, Justice League International vol. 1, Bullseye's Greatest Hits

I don't think they can take Jericho from Smackdown just because the main event scene is so sparse there right now. Granted its stale on Raw but unless the crowd starts booing HHH again they aren't going to be taking any drastic measures. Jericho is a good draw for both brands but once he's done I think he'll settle on Smackdown, especially if Undertaker is due back later this year and Michaels comes back at Summerslam. Mostly I'm just appalled by WWE's lack of vision right now. They are wasting MVP, Evan Bourne and several others at a time when they are really hurting for star power. Again that lack of vision is only on Raw, with HHH, John Cena, and Randy Orton suffocating the main event and most of the show it seems (from results). Even those who are supposed to get some semblance of a push, DiBiase and Rhodes, are being booked so poorly as cannon fodder. Maybe when they break out something will happen and hopefully nobody will remember when they were getting their asses kicked by Cena, HHH, Batista and Shane on a weekly basis. With Smackdown there is an incredible vision, with excellent character development, mic time, and matches for CM Punk, John Morrison, and Dolph Ziggler as new main event stars. Also the women get matches and time, every week, to build their feuds. They are doing wonders building up a #1 contender for the tag titles with the Hart Foundation vs. Cryme Tyme feud. Of course, losing Edge and, soon Hardy, probably hurts next months plans...but they are attempting to build top level stars.