The Unholy Dragon

Why can't I get an adaptation of The Long Halloween over two movies or three movies?Long Halloween is a middling story elevated by Tim Sale art. You can tell because Dark Victory and Hush are the same middling story told again with different players. Jeph Loeb is a master of hiding his weaknesses by teaming with all star artists.That said, people need to start adapting Snyder or Morrison. Or hell, do an adaptation of No Man's Land.

I have been trying to let it go, but that Figure Four being wrong bothers me every time I see it.

I'm mostly into the way it carries this running theme of fears and limitations. Where Morrison's run is defined by Batman overcoming everything, Snyder's is all about the idea that as a man he has limits, challenging him to find new ways to go beyond them. The Court of Owls is bigger and older. The Riddler and Endgame turn his city against him. And Joker is the one who can slip through the cracks and bring him to his weakest forcing him to keep becoming better to survive. It's got layers along a theme with a lot of the same strengths as Morrison's run, just focused more on his humanity than iconography.

Fairly recent series I'll grant, but I feel like if Selfie had been a Netflix series it could have found the audience it just didn't otherwise. I want it back for more of David Harewood's character alone. Young Justice needs a miniseries or a DCAU movie to wrap it. Badly.

Eh. Once the original hype subsided, a lot of people cooled on the first Avengers. It's definitely gone from top of the pops to middle of the pack for me since it hit and that's not just down to Phase 2 being awesome. The movie has a lot of problems from the weird creeping militarism to the overly long final battle that never really sold the stakes...I never bought that any of the team were in danger and thus it was more extended squash than tense climax. With SHIELD gone and Ultron being a more credible threat than Loki and the Chitauri, there's no reason the sequel shouldn't be able to improve on the original.

My two biggest complaints about Man of Steel revolve around turning Supes into a mopey ass sad sack who is driven by fear and does what he's told more than what's right to a point. Basically a lot of it is down to the Jonathan Kent stuff which, while perfectly acted, is just the wrong approach for the character to me. It's using unnecessary tragedy as a shortcut to the perception of depth and it's so obvious it makes me mad. That's not even a criticism I have of this movie specifically as much as the Hollywood structure right now. Even something fun like Big Hero 6 can't get by without everyone rolling stages of grief. It's frustrating. Anyway, point B is that I don't mind the destruction in the last Zod fight or Superman killing him. I dig Max Landis' take of "I don't have a code. I just generally don't kill people because I don't have to." Here he had to and that's fine. Zod Had nearly powered up to the same level and Superman had never been in a real fight before in his life while facing a guy who was literally bred and raised to be a combatant. But there's the problem. None of the action sold this. It wasn't Zod kicking the shit out of Supes only for Supes to pull something out by using his knowledge of his powers or something. Zod wasn't using civilians to distract Supes and get cheap advantages. It was just two guys hitting each other in rotomotion until a death scene that was both obvious and trite which had the bonus of PROVING ZOD RIGHT. Basically they had a chance to sell those decisions and instead they did a generic fight scene. Which sort of sums up my problems with Man of Steel, Zack Snyder, and my concerns for Superman v Batman all at once.

I feel that, though the New 52 half of Inc. kind of popped that bubble. It's somehow a terrible and perfect finish and I still can't wrap my head around how it can be both. But after building up thw unbeatable Bat-God, Morrison brings him down again which dovetails into what Snyder has done with him nicely.

So basically everything about Batman is great in that and Superman has all the same problems as MoS, but given how mass audiences have become a bunch of overly cynical babies who think sadness equals depth, maybe that is the best take for the times and I'm just out of touch. Seriously though, that may be the best Batman costume committed to film. It looks right out of the comics without a cosplay vibe. I dig the Nolan suits but they're so clearly military armour stuff...this looks like comic books.

*this year. Grodd is happening before the end of the season. Likely in episode 20 or 21.

Frankly I think the success of Arrow has changed a lot of that. The Wonder Woman pilot was the only one of those three that showed promise as well. It wasn't great but I can't say it was notably worse than the Arrow pilot. Just different problems. Would probably land now. Gotham has kind of turned into a fun carnival ride. It's not well written or characterized but I can't say the last few weren't fun. Also Constantine still isn't officially cancelled. And hopefully won't be since it was also improving toward the end of S1. Basically you can draw a correlation between how blatantly John smokes and the quality of the show. Even if it turfs, DC should turnaround Matt Ryan for a R rated Hellblazer flick. He looks and plays it perfectly.

Finally finished Daredevil. I loved it. Not sure how much more can be said. A few specifics though.

In fairness, Speed Force dropped the ball more than most. And also showcased the fine continuity problems as Jay still had powers despite the pre-Flashpoint timing which even the recap said he shouldn't. I get the appeal of Jay and Iris at that stage but the sliding timeline as well as every hero apparently being in Gotham when the walls came down is a bit much. The Flashpoint Universe suffers from this BADLY as well. A lot of characters that should be dead popping up despite it clearly being post-Flashpoint #5 (And confirmed as that iteration via Batman in...I want to say the Superman issue) For a project so geared toward continuity nerds, this is really sloppy about its own. And yet I'm having fun with it?

How does anyone googling Ronda Rousey make WWE any money? Pretending the wrestlers that work there actually mean something might turn Mizdow into someone that can make money for the company. Just because Vince has a hard-on for any mainstream publicity that isn't associated with Daniel Bryan doesn't mean that Ronda Rousey showing up to armdrag Triple H will actually do anything for anyone in the long run. I think it's cute that you think Damien Sadnow can be a long term draw. The gimmick is fun and plainly over but once he's past the Miz feud where does it go? Especially given Sandow is horrifically bland in-ring? It's a hot act right now but there was always a ceiling for it.

A big problem with all the Convergence minis I've gotten through so far is that by having only two issues to juggle status quo, crossover concept, conflict, action, and fan service....well, almost all the first issues feel very similar and do more to set up the REALLY cool stuff in issue 2 than be great on their own. Also, for all the superheroes involved, the only ones seeming to question fhe fighting hard were in Superman.

So I'm all for loose continuity, but almost five months later I still can't figure out when the hell Robin Rises is supposed to have happened relative to everything else in the Bat-books/JLA/Earth 2 shenanigans.

i thought the last issue was pushed back to 4/29. that's totally waitable. if there's more after that one, then you may be right. addendum: i just read the Arkham Manor series. when it was first announced i thought it sounded like a stupid premise and there's no way it would work. then i found out that it tied into Batman Eternal (which i love) so i decided to give it a shot. then i read it. found out it doesn't really tie into Eternal at all (besides the setup). Plus, the writing is bad and the characterizations are all over the place. so, so bad. I enjoyed Arkham Manor. That take on Mr. Freeze especially. Wasn't great but I enjoyed it the whole way through.

So apparently that segment running long caused the main to lose ten minutes. Which is probably for the best because Brock-Roman was an amazingly tight and awesome 15 minute match but probably would have gone to shit by 25.

I mean it's gotta be kinda hard to stay in biz when married to a guy that now hates it. He's said he wouldn't watch her stuff anymore in interviews and there were rumours of some strife there. Maybe she just decided she had to stand with her relationship over her career. In the end we won't know unless she tells us. Kind of a sad and abrupt end to a great career. Sort of like Punk himself.

Yeah. It's not the crassness that's the problem. It's the notion that's all they're there for that's super insulting. That was a really good tag too.

He was injured going in.

Trevor Noah was actually my first choice when I heard the show would go on. Dude isn't just funny...he can bridge cultural gaps in a way a lot of others can't. Also he would be happy to hear you think of him as black.

Did HHH lock Vince in a closet? Great IC and US title matches with time and suspense. Fun 8 man tag to give the Lucha Dragons their Raw debut. Great, long Divas tag. Several pointed and well delivered short matches keeping Mizdow and Rusev over and debuting Neville. Fun main event 6 man that did its thing. Great Sheamus rrturn. And an amazing Brock angle in the guts of it. The only real flaw of the show was that long stretch of Byron Saxton on his own. I never thought I'd be glad to hear Jerry Lawler in 2015 but there it is.

On Angle/Shawn. That was one conversation point so I don't want to expand on it too much here. Maybe sidebar in a more relevant thread. But fuck that match. I was a huge mark for both guys at the time and I still hated it. And I've soured on both since then.

Roman is growing. He's capable of being led to great stuff by great workers. Same as Rollins, Orton, Batista, Sheamus, and any number of other top guys. Whether he ever becomes good enough to raise up lesser workers remains to be seen, but he's perfectly fine for where he's at And is thusfar having a great year.