Spritenaut 32

Ain't gonna lie. I'd probably be intrigued by a tag match between Johnny B. Badd/Elvis Presley and Maxx Payne/lead singer of Quiet Riot.

Rock and Jericho's most recent runs set the bar really low.

I'd back up his point about not using anonymous sources, but, well, I tend to believe most of what Meltzer says. I thought Breevort denied it convincingly without saying anything that could come back to bite him later. If the stuff Rich wrote in the last paragraph is true, Breevort could be lying or issuing a carefully worded non-denial, but that doesn't seem like the case. It seems like Johnson is mostly reading things into his the statement to fit his version of things. Besides, Rich's sources hinted they were going to stop promoting X-Men for the same reason, which sounds insane given how well the titles sell and the effort they generally put into getting big name creators on the titles. Marvel gets the merchandising money from the FF movies, don't they? That came up in one of the marvel movie threads that Disney and Fox cut a deal a few years ago to that effect. So, promoting FF is still in their interest even if they don't get the movie money? Apparently, the superhero movies sell a lot of merch for Marvel. That's not even getting into the argument that a Fox FF movie probably sells some extra comics for Marvel. Or that benching one of their most iconic franchises would probably cause a PR nightmare that would damage the property and their core business (comics). Granted, you have to sell a insane amount of comics to make what you make off one movie, but.....

Awful show, except for Rollin's heel turn. I'm not really that sold on the Shield, but I'm still sorry to see them go. I enjoyed Ambrose and Rollins when they were on the indys, so I kinda hate to seem the stable split. Not convinced either guy won't get lost in the shuffle and be jobbing with Damien Sandow at year's end. Thought the turn was well done, so far as that goes, and I'm not bothered by whether or not it "makes sense". Most babyfaces turn heel out of jealousy or frustration. Money too, but you don't see that as much any more since the heel manager is nearly extinct. I assume Rollins is tired of playing peacemaker, or feels overlooked, or wants a singles push. That said, it's a good short-term angle since Rollins seemed the least likely to turn, but it feels like he's someone with a better chance of making it as a babyface. Ambrose is much more a natural heel, I think. I'll give it a chance, but heel Rollins reminds me of Justin Gabriel without the Nexus. Rest of show was just sorta there. Alicia Fox still has a brutal looking axe kick. And I was amused to see ADR and Ziggler wrestle each other in a MitB qualifier, since that supposedly means one of them had to qualify. As much as they've buried both guys, I didn't expect to see either one of them qualify. Hornswoggle/3MB/Los Matadores may have been the most fun thing on the show. Consider that for a minute.

Mind blown. Caught a bit of a Scotty Riggs shoot. He claims he was 2nd choice for Bagwell's partner in the American Males. WCW's first choice.... Tommy Dreamer. That's not all that farfetched. Dreamer was part of an American Males-style pretty boy tag team when he started out (in the New England indys). His TD Madison character would have fit right in, Stlll... mind blown. I've heard WWF and WCW both offered him deals pre-ECW. His career could have been a lot different,

The really hilarious part is that pic is the one TNA used on their website. You'd think they'd ask him to put on a TNA cap. Too funny.

I look forward to Bryan's impending heel turn. I look forward to Bryan's super babyface push. When he starts making poopy jokes, we'll know he's really over as a face. Also, people are surprised that John Cena, this generation's Hulk Hogan, won the blow-off to a feud with the crazy cult leader who wants to spread destruction in the world. Their feud wasn't about being a better wrestler. It was Bray Wyatt trying to tear down Cena's image, corrupt his fans, "spread evil to into the world", etc. They booked the feud to give Wyatt some sort of moral victory even when he lost, and Cena jobbed to him at the last PPV (via kid in sheep's mask). Losing the fued would = the monsters have won and are loose. Even in the post-attitude WWE, no one is booking their pure babyface ace to lose under those conditions. It'd be like Hogan losing a "winner gets to possess Mean Gene" match to Papa Shango.

That would make some sense. As I said earlier, I couldn't really figure why his plan went from killing Mystique to prevent Wolverine's timeline from existing, to trying to kill the president and cause a very public mass casualty event (thereby confirming the public's fears about mutants and bringing about Wolvie's future). But nothing in the movie really hinted he had a nobler motive,

Yeah, wife and I loved it. Is it really getting mostly negative reviews? I watched Anchorman 2 a week or so ago and thought it was really stale. But Will Ferrel is a weird one for me. His movies always sound funny to me if someone tells me about the plot, or recounts some of the gags, but I never laugh when I actually see the movies. I thought Anchorman was kinda bad, but it sounded hysterical when the wife talked it up (she saw it before me and thought it was very funny).

I'm taking it as an admission that

So Marvel/Disney doesn't make anything from the X-Men/FF/Spidey movies, but they get all the merchandising money. How much are we talking about? I would think even the merchandising from a flop like Fantastic Four or a minor hit like ASM2 would amount to a fair bit. There's a rumor going around that Marvel is going to cancel the Fantastic Four comic(s) until they get the movie rights back, and maybe cut promotion of the X-Men books for the same reason. I've been trying to figure out how that helps them much in the long run.

And what if there really were two Ultimate Warriors Instead of three, you mean?

Same here. Fortunately, he's coming back for realz tonite!!!! Probably not.

Internet would explode, killing us all?

Saw DoFP today, enjoyed it far more than I expected to. It might be my favorite super hero movie of the past 15 years , though that owes more to not seeing a lot of the Marvel comic movies and often not liking the usual suspects (Nolan's Batman films were worth seeing once, but I wouldn't watch them again even if they're free on TNT. Didn't care for Man of Steel, Winter Soldier, etc.). The only comic book movie I've enjoyed nearly as much was Avengers and DoFP had much better plotting. If nothing else, DoFP got me interested in renting First Class later this week. Think I'll skip Wolverine and the other X-films, though. i probably saw X-Man and X-2 when they first came out, anyways. One thing that bugged me, Magneto seems to be making things up as he went along. So, to prevent the dystopian future Wolverine came back to warn them about, Mags decides to just kill Mystique. Ok, makes sense. This has the unfortunate result of setting Trask on the path to creating the adaptive Sentinels, by giving Trask access to Mystique's blood. Rather than reflect on his role in wrecking the future, Mags then hotwires the Sentinels and.... decides to hold the White House hostage and maybe kill the President (again) - all of this on tv, of course. Hijacking the sentinels seemed like a good plan to scare off public support. Trying to off the president and a few hundred civilians... not so much. I know, the answer is that Mags is a mutant terrorist who doesn't believe in peaceful coexistence. Still, if his plan was to off Trask and the president himself, why try to kill Mystique? Seeing the "sendoff" of the present day cast at the end reminded me that the franchise - and comic book movies, in general - are attracting better actors these days. I have no need to see James Marsden and Famke Janssen on the big screen if you can get Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence instead. And JL's role used to be played by Rebecca Romijn, who as an actress makes a great supermodel. Had fun. May be the only Marvel movie I like this year (1-2 so far), Planning on going to Guardians of the Galaxy because I love the Starlin cosmic stuff from the comics and really enjoyed the Abnett/Lanning cosmic books from earlier this century. Also, I'm a big Everwood fan and never thought Chris Pratt would get another steady gig, so seeing him star in a major summer blockbuster is kinda odd. But the movie still doesn't look like my thing.

I can't figure out what they were trying to do here. Go through the table? Or not go to the outside of the cage at all.

"Back in the day?" Holee....... I suddenly feel very old. I realize It's been 5 or 6 years since New Hazard was around, but I don't think if the Blood Gen/New Hazard/M'Oz era as "back in the day.: Back in the day, I was a big fan of the Italian Connection and Crazy Max. Back in the day, I watched the Crazy Max guys in Mexico. They hadn't hit in Japan yet. Back in the day, I was a bif fan of "Natural Born Master: Keiji Mutoh. I'm going to bed now. It's past 6 PM. Tme for us old folks to get some sleep.

Fox had the rights and greenlit a pilot, but didn't pick it up. As I recall, the pilot was shopped around to SyFy, MTV, and.... a few others, I think. Supposedly, there is a flim version in the works, Universal is developing it and hopes the first flim does well enough to turn it into a triology.

Yeah, Ithe gun is a movie universe retcon. As for Bishop's powers being the 80's-est thing imaginable... Well, he appeared in 1991 and his initial appeal/powerset seemed to be the ability to be overly buff and still think a mullet was a good idea (and he was from the future, lol, Apparently, mullets, twinkies, and cockroaches will be the three things to survive a nuclear war). Oh, and he was often drawn by guys like Whilce Portacio and Rob Liefield, so he frequently had shifting anatomy that didn't look quite proportional, perfect hair, and a lack of feet. Did I mention he was also brooding and mysterious? Or initially dressed like a futuristic version of Dexy's Midnight Runners? In retrospect, his powerset might have been the least 80's thing about him. He was co-created by artist Jim Lee, if that explains anything.

If it's any consolation, Nic Cage was probably thinking the same thing. He was wrong too.

I'd be more inclined to believe it if they hadn't just relaunched FF. Also, the article implies they're going to stop promoting the X-books, if not cancel them outright. Given how many X-books they publish and how well they sell, it sounds nuts to stop promoting the X-line because you don't control the movie rights. In general, I don't see the point. X-Men and FF both make money for Marvel. Granted, you undoubtedly have to sell a hell of a lot of tpb's to make what DoFP would bring in, but one drives the other. A sucessful movie is going to have some effect on comic and collection sales, merchandise sales, etc. - profit streams you do control. Also, the bump from movies seems like it would be fairly short lived, whereas you're making at least some money from FF on a regular basis (and more from the X books). The part about them concentrating on Avengers amuses me greatly, Has there really been that great a sustained increase in sales due to the Avengers and Iron Man movies? Iron Man, I could sorta believe. Avengers has never been a huge seller for them. Bendis raised the profile a little, and the movie raised it a little more than that, but I doubt the movie is going to propel Avengers into the stratosphere of, say, Batman and X-Men - particularly when the core Avengers books don't tend to feature the same characters as the movie. Honestly, if that's their plan for Avengers, they need to get Hickman off the books asap. Nothing about Hickman's plotting and writing seems likely to appeal to the casual moviegoer who is not already a huge comics fan.

Maybe they'll pair her with Santino for her first program. That should help get her over[/working a program with Santino is a dead end]

You say it eliminates the weakest part of the show, but I don't see how that would improve Laurel's character. Good point. What was I thinking? Yeah, Laurel is probably worse than Ollie's family, though Thea-the-teenaged-bar-owner and Moira running for mayor just (weeks? Months?) after being in prison and not getting anyone to attend her dinner party was more absurd. Summer Glau's character did die. She was the "Deathstroke" killed by Nyssa after Oliver showed "weakness" by deciding to spare her.

Are you sure you don't mean "Need for Speed?".

Wait.... wha? Did someone (Meltzer?) say they were seriously trying to get Orton over? Really?