Tom BITD

We see him raising a man from the dead....that's pretty supernatural to me. And there's still the horse-mounted gatling guns and the Great Sucking Black Hole Of Talent That Needs To Eat A Cheeseburger as a sidekick (and if she's supposed to be playing Tallulah, as someone pointed out to me tonight, she's so miscast it's not funny, lack of talent aside). So yeah...I think I can stand by my contention that this is Hex in name and image only.

Des, I have no objection with it being a weird western film--after all, we're talking about a character who was the star of a book called Weird Western Tales. But the strongest of the Hex stories, like the Joe Lansdale Vertigo trilogy of miniseries, depicted Hex as an ordinary, highly skilled man who keeps getting thrust into these strange, surreal stories of zombies and underground races of monsters and were-bear-babies. He survived these stories through his skills as a gunfighter and his sense of humor. If we were getting that Hex, I'd be pretty euphroric. This isn't that Hex. This is a guy with actual supernatural powers, a 'Q' figure who devises horse-mounted gatling gun, a love interest/sidekick (played by one of those actresses we're told is HawtHawtHawt but is actually all the shades of annoying in the rainbow and is as generically anorexic as they come) who apparently got her 'southr'n' accent from Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. It comes off as a horrific mash-up of the big-screen Wild, Wild West, The Crow, and, as I mentioned earlier, the Mariotte-penned comic book series (which i wicked cool) Desperadoes. So yeah, this trailer managed the amazing task of killing my enthusiasm for a movie in just over two minutes.

So they'll stop when she looks like a thoroughly generic brunette who would literally run away at the sight of a cheeseburger? I'm sorry, but the woman does nothing for me--and her 'south'rn belle ya'all' accent in the trailer is literally painful to the ears. I cannot stand her and hope that people will wake up and she returns to her previous job...a job which somehow involved the phrase 'Do you want fries with that?' presumably...

Am I the only one who thinks the producers secretly wanted to adapt that old school Homage/Wildstorm series DESPERADOES, but decided that Hex had a more marketable brand? This looks like a trainwreck, from the rewriting of Hex's origin to the supernatural powers....and Ye Fucking GODS, when is someone going to realize what a hideously bad actress Megan Fox is?

You do know that the way you pronounced 'Dove In' makes it sound like the Greatest. Dokken. Cover. Band. EVER?

HUMAN TARGET is a Fox Show, and it's listed as being likely to be renewed. I hope so, as a great fan of Mark Valley.

But the CW has no choice--as insanely, disgustingly awful as that show is, it's one of the very few shows that actually generate revenue for it. And with that network on the brink of disintigrating, it needs what few hits it can generate. It's the reason why the originally five-seasons-and-out SUPERNATURAL looks to be coming back for a sixth season...

Oh, the book stunk like Hell before Rose was ported in from the ill-advised Deathstroke The Hunter...we are talking about the middle of a stretch of the book where Marv Wolfman admits he was burned out, that his editor pretty much muscled him into most of the plots (including the addition of Rose) and that he hated that editor so much he won't even evoke his name again. And I've always liked Rose. I didn't care for the 'I'm tearing my eye out to be like daddy' thing, but I did like where Johns ultimately took the character. Well, let's see....since Johns left TITANS--something he's hinted was not his decision...we've seen the book's writer change at least four times, something akin to a dozen (I'm trying to recall from memory, so my actual sum might not be accurate) Titans die--including a handful who seemingly joined just so they could die, a roster that has changed on a pretty much quarterly basis, a number of horrifically graphic scenes of torture, a team that is more concerned with arguing with each other and breaking up than actually, you know, being a team, and a pet dog tearing the face off of one supporting character after eating another. And now that we've got a writer who looks like she's going to stick around...well, she's not very good and seems so in love with her pet concept of 'The Wyld' that she's pushing everything else out of the way. More importantly...we've seen the sales on the book plumment close to cancellation levels, as more and more people have been leaving the title. As I've said..it's like DiDio is actively trying to kill the title and all the characters associated with same. Thus removing him from the TITANS family of books.... Thus removing all of them from the TITANS family of books--and trapping them in a series that, God Help Me, may be even worse written than TT is now.... This removing Tim from the book...leaving us with a group of secondary characters like Aquagirl, Blue Beetle (although I wonder if he's going to be gone to play his part in the book about the tattered remnants of that OTHER super-team DiDio has a fatwa against, JLI), Static and the like. You can't say that removing so many of the characters who have reader loyalty from a book constitutes throwing a spotlight upon it. Des, I really don't know how to respond to that last statement--isn't the whole point of doing a tie-in like BLACKEST NIGHT:TITANS (which was written by J.T. Krul, who did an amazing job on the mini and the two TT tie-in issues, and should be the writer on TITANS and not doing Didio's will on the GREEN ARROW franchise) is to get people to read the core book? DiDio knows that TT, like JLI, makes money. But I suspect he really hates these properties because they're supposed to have moments of brightness and light...so he does everything he can to undermine them while exploiting their name values.

There actually already is a 'back door' out of the whole 'only twelve regenerations' things set up. Back in THE DEADLY ASSASSIN, the Doctor is elected President of Gallifrey...and we're informed in a line of dialogue that one of the perks of being President is that those who served in the office are given an entirely new twelve-regeneration cycle. So technically, the Doctor can regenerate 24 times.

The weird thing is, of course, that... 1) As it's been pointed out before, Ollie has killed before during the Longbow Hunters/Mike Grell era, the first time he used regular arrows exclusively--and he got through that 'okay', and 2) The DC Universe already has/had a Punisher in the second iteration of The Vigilante, the Adrian Chase character. What it means, yet again, is that this is another example of the present DCU's belief that super-heroes have to be 'edgy' and 'scary' and 'conflicted'. Of course, what saddens me more is the implication that Speedy is going to be doing the Rose Wilson bit and following her mentor into the darkness--thus taking a character that was all about accepting tragic circumstances and rising above them and turning her into just another conflicted character. Just more proof of the DiDio fatwa against the Teen Titans, I guess.

...didn't you say at one point that Barry in Blackest Night was more accurate to his original personality? Yes...and if the portrayal was consistent throughout Barry's appearane, I wouldn't bring it up...since everywhere else he's being this Horatio Cane hard-core, hard-ass cop, it's obvious that the only reason we've got Compassion Berry in BLACKEST NIGHT is to force him into the Blue Lantern role. (And that's not even touching the rage-inducing 'We have to be more like Hal' speech he gave in BN #4) Movie scriptwriters have a word for a character being assigned a personality trait that isn't inherent in their behavior--the informed attribute. Compassion was in no way an informed attribute in the pre-CRISIS world. It certainly is now in the Universe DiDio Built.

Well, he was kind and compassionate because if he wasn't, there wouldn't be a Barry Blue Lantern, and the whole New Guardians thing would make no sense. Outside of that storyline, there's no reason for him to appear compassionate--or, apparently, to have such pre-DiDio continuity as living parents--so he's a dick. Welcome to The New DCU. Don't say I didn't say 'Hey, those masterful artist-types are sans outer coverings!' way back when.

Because Dan Didio wants super-heroes not to get along, and wants to justify the future heel-turn of GA...and if it makes little sense, well, who cares?

The New DC Universe....It's The Silver Age, Now With More Rape And Dismemberment!

As long as one of the podcast is a shorter one, I don't see any reason listeners can't handle two podcasts a day. Hell, I know of some sites (Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Weekly comes readily to mind) where they sometimes post two or three a day. And I'm willing to bet there are some listeners who only download specific podcasts and ignore others.

I have this weird, cold feeling about the announcement of Mendes--another Craig friend, incidentally. And if the rumors about casting are also true....well, we may be in for a very, very, very bad entry.

That's what the updated feed is saying...but it still sucks the cocks of many nations. Leno is the Brett 'Selfish Man' Farve of late night television, and Conan--who has been graciously waiting in the wings for years, toiling away on Late Night, and is now going to get his reward taken away from him--is holding the crap sandwich Leno once handed his mentor, Letterman. Of course, what is interesting to me is how, when I first heard of this 'Leno at 10' move, I predicted it wouldn't last a season--and now, apparantly, NBC is scrambling to green light something, anything to fill that now empty seven hours. Sadly, I worry it'll be more reality swill.

But NBC is so afraid that Leno will go to ABC--the threat he used to get him that 10p.m. slot--that they'll bend over backwards to keep him...which means telling Conan to bend over and take it. I'm thinking that Conan and Letterman need to just ambush the big oaf and finish him off for good.

You know, I have always hated the 'War Chief is The Master is The Meddling Monk' theory ever since FASA first put forth the theory in a supplement to their DOCTOR WHO Game. Look--all three have different goals and ambitions. All three have different M.O.s. The Doctor knew the Master upon first laying his eyes on him. He didn't recognize either the Monk or The War Chief. The Master is the Master. Even when he's prancing about to Scissor Sisters and trying desperately to be as freaky as The Joker. The War Chief is the War Chief. The Monk is The Monk. Don't confuse the three.

Will.... Trust me. Your view of the Husker-Du game that is Die Another Dayis well-represented in next week's episode 71....

The theme song to Die Another Day the best theme song since The Living Daylights? .... Really? I mean, really? .... No wonder Mike asked Derrick and me to join this network... (and incidentally, if anyone needs to find Episode 57 so you can get the real goods on A View To A Kill--although, to be fair, next Sunday's Episode 71 starts off with an apology to that movie for my calling it the worst Bond ever--the back catalog is available at bitd.libsyn;com until the archives are up)

You're allowed...

When you are on top of a island of guano, you value the very few nuggets of coal amongst them.... ....and this is why, even after my apology, you shall always be an AVTAK Surrender Monkey. After all, it may not be Die Another Day (and I find that it was supposed to be the '40th Anniversary Celebration' part of the massive insult that is that film--what, all you can offer is a massive game of Husker-Du after all that?), but the combination of one of the worst collection of villains, a director that is keen on indulging Moore's every impulse, a deadly dull plot, and, yes, the great-grandfatherly Moore still makes it a near-apocalyptic piece of crap. ....surrender monkey....

Moonraker had a decent Shirley Bassey song and a magnificent Ken Adams set or two....Die Another Day had a Madonna track that I swear was an already extant song she considered an outtake that she adapted to this abomination and a crappy-ass CGI airplane as the villian's base....plus, you know, Halle Berry. (Lois Chile's Holly Goodhead could beat the living bejeezus out of Halle Berry's Jinx, incidentally) So I'm sorry, but....Die Another Day sucks the cocks of more nations than Moonraker. Oh...and A View To A Kill is worse than Moonraker as well. It's thoroughly awful, but it doesn't descend to the depth those two films do.

I hated Die Another Day so much I actually apologize to A View To A Kill in the upcoming episode 71 of BITD. An intensely stupid film that manages to be smug about its stupidity...and its overreliance on CGI. And I'm not even going to start on the horror that is Halle Berry, except to say that given what the film sets up in the first half, there is no way she wins the fight with one of the film's main villains.