The Unholy Dragon

The build was better and more engaging. The payoff was awful.Contrast the massive death orgy with the sheer awesomeness of a lineup of goons clapping you through to Joker who turns himself into a monster and tries to make you as well, only for you to fight to not be that...to fight him as yourself with the tools that make you who you are. It was a better payoff to the story and the characterization to that point, which also had the benefit of being a relatively satisfying end boss battle rather than...well, the last throwdown in AC.

On second watch, Flashpoint Paradox is pretty bad. And uh, exceedingly fucking violent. Jesus. Fun enough for the spectacle and Batman though.

The franchise any time it leaves the hands of Todd is all the proof you need of that. Holguin and especially Hine did great stuff with the main title and there were some excellent spinoffs like Hellspawn/Sam and Twitch as well.

PS3 only though, at least at launch.If that turns out to be another "Play as Joker" situation, I'll be at least slightly miffed.

Yup. He confirmed it in his CBR interview.

Yeah, Invincible is great but I feel like anyone who starts in trades instead of hardcovers will have a hard time getting hooked.

Flashpoint Paradox was thoroughly okay. Not great, but okay. I was falling asleep toward the end though, so a second watch will be required. Beware the Batman doesn't fill the YJ/GL shaped hole in my heart, but I'm enjoying it a lot. I really appreciate the less frequently used villains coming out and the promise of an epic Batman/Shiva throwdown fills my heart with glee. She's one of my favourite villains, so getting to see her adapted excites me.

To me a "ballsy move" would have been a black or British-Indian woman as the new Doctor. Particularly since never in the history of Doctor Who has the ability of Time Lords/Ladies to change their sex ever even been hinted at. Well, Neil Gaiman made a gender change regeneration canon in the Doctor's Wife at least. I wonder between racial and gender politics which will bend first in regards to the Doctor. There's been a female Inspector Spacetime dammit!

I uh.I actually bought Catwoman.It was only $5 and it went toward my goal of watching every Batman franchise movie ever (including both 40s serials). If it helps, Blockbuster once paid my friends and I to rent it.

Young People Fucking the Smurfs Obvious, but try getting the image out of your head.

I'd love to see the Ikki Kajiwara Memorial Show or that Stampede event. 1988/04/02: WWF @ Milan Palatrussardi in Milano, Lombardia (Italy) 1. Brady Boone defeated Steve Lombardi 2. Ax and Smash defeated Paul Roma and Jim Powers (7:47 minutes) 3. Brutus Beefcake defeated Greg Valentine by disqualification (8:06 minutes) 4. Koko B. Ware defeated Ron Bass (9:10 minutes) 5. Hercules vs. Ultimate Warrior ended without a winner as a double countout (4:24 minutes) 6. André the Giant defeated Jim Duggan 1988/04/02: Show @ Cloverdale Surrey, British Columbia (Canada) 1. Mike Masters defeated Inferno 2. Sweet Daddy Sampson defeated Eddie Watts 3. Buddy Wayne defeated Ritchie Magnett by disqualification 4. Rocky Dellaserra defeated Verne Siebert 5. Neil Drummond defeated Mauro Ranallo 6. Rick Davis defeated ET Stanton by disqualification 1988/04/02: Show @ Ashton-under-Lyne Tameside Hippodrome in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England (United Kingdom) 1. Bernie Wright vs. Richie Brooks ended without a winner as a time limit draw 2. Ian McGregor defeated Rasputin 3. Grasshopper defeated Matt Matthews 4. Marty Jones defeated John Quinn by disqualification 5. Barry Douglas defeated Richie Brooks 1988/04/02: PNW @ Portland Portland, Oregon (United States of America) 1. Al Madril and Cocoa Samoa defeated Moondog Moretti and CW Bergstrom 2. Art Barr defeated Mike Golden by disqualification 3. The Assassin defeated Moondog Moretti 4. Scott Peterson defeated Avalanche by disqualification 5. Avalanche and Mike Golden defeated Art Barr and Billy Two Eagles 6. Cage Match: The Grappler defeated Matt Borne 1988/04/02: JCP @ Bluefield Bluefield, West Virginia (United States of America) 1. Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers defeated Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane by disqualification 1988/04/02: Ikki Kajiwara Memorial Show 1988 Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan) 1. Harley Saito defeated Miss A 2. Rumi Kazama defeated Cutie Suzuki 3. Wrestler vs. Kickboxer Match: Ismael Changani vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara ended without a winner 4. AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Masanobu Fuchi © defeated Kenta Kobashi 5. Giant Baba and Tiger Mask #2 defeated Abdullah the Butcher and George Skaaland 1988/04/02: CWA TV-Taping @ Memphis WMC Studios in Memphis, Tennessee (United States of America) 1. Tom Brandi defeated Keith Eric 2. Jerry Lawler defeated Tommy Punk 3. Mighty Yankee #1 and Mighty Yankee #2 defeated Doug Dancing and Alan Reynolds 4. Cuban Assassin #1 and Cuban Assassin #2 defeated Ken Raper and Freezer Thompson 5. Brickhouse Brown, Max Pain and Gary Young vs. Ron Bruise, Don Bruise and Scott Steiner ended without a winner as a time limit draw 1988/04/02: AJPW Champion Carnival 1988 - Day 8 Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan) 1. Masanobu Fuchi defeated Kenta Kobashi (9:01 minutes) 2. Giant Baba and Tiger Mask #2 defeated Abdullah the Butcher and George Skaaland 1988/04/02: Stampede @ Edmonton Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) 1. Jonathan Holliday defeated Gilles Des Fosses 2. Willie Seymour defeated Goldie Rogers 3. Gerry Morrow defeated Suni War Cloud 4. British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title Match: Chris Benoit © defeated Cuban Assassin 5. Stampede International Tag Team Titles Match: Kerry Brown and Rip Rogers defeated Bruce Hart and Brian Pillman © by disqualification 6. Owen Hart and Jason the Terrible vs. Makhan Singh and Johnny Smith ended without a winner as a no contest 1988/04/02: AJW @ ??? Japan 1. Erika Shishido and Nobuko Kimura vs. Mika Takahashi and Kaoru Maeda - winner unknown 2. Dynamite King, Dynamite Queen and Dynamite Jack vs. Lioness Asuka, Hisako Uno and Mika Suzuki - winner unknown 3. WWF Women's Tag Team Titles Match: Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki © defeated Yumiko Hotta and Mitsuko Nishiwaki 4. WWWA All-Pacific Title Match: Chigusa Nagayo © defeated Bull Nakano

Sorta. I got the even bigger one volume DC Comics: 75 Years edition that was like...$225 and the size of a damned briefcase. It's a neat coffee table book with lots of great, high quality art reproductions. The actual story stuff was largely fluff from what I've read, but not bad. I haven't exactly gone in-depth with it though. Pretty sure those are just reproducing that content at a more affordable price point/size.

Atomic Robo is the best thing in the universe and everyone should read it.

It's a very good story, but my god does it try to do a big payoff to the point of anticlimax at the end. It's Hugo Strange! NOPE DEAD!It's Ra's Al Ghul! NOW HE'S DEAD!Joker kidnapped Talia! SHE'S DEAD!JOKER'S DEAD!By the time the death orgy was done, I just couldn't care about the supposed emotional payoff. And Clayface is a wild anticlamactic endboss as well.It's still a fun story, but it's got too many problems to rank with the all-time greats.

Hellraiser actually improves once it goes DTV. 5 is my favourite of the series with 6 being of comparable quality. 7 is a step back, but still interesting. 8 is atrocious, but hilariously so. I still need to see the remake, as it's apparently so atrocious as to be straight to DVD and basically disavowed by everyone involved with Hellraiser ever.

Hey, speaking of awesome independent horror comics that read well digitally, y'all should be reading The Eighth Seal. It's free on Thrillbent right now, but I recommend the paid ComiXology version. It's super slick on tablets.

http://comicsalliance.com/grant-morrison-batman-review-dc/ Really good wrap up by David Uzumeri whose annotations on Morrison's Batman run and Final Crisis are basically essential reading. As he points out though, it's a little depressing how Batman goes from the perfect man who can do anything to an overgrown manchild playing games while the rest of the world functions around him, but in some ways it works for both.The more I think of the Hole in Things, the more I think that all of the retcons almost fit given the nature of the story.

I read this a couple months before the project started and really enjoyed it. I feel like the ending came too quickly and was a bit predictable after all the buildup, but fuck it. I dug the characters and that was the most important part.

So meta. So awesome. http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/26-marvel-comics-omnibus-thread/page-3

No direct ties to Gothic, but there were definite thematic ties to that, Arkham, and JLA.I'm with Fowler in saying Morrison's Batman run is my favourite ever. Especially if you include the earlier stuff I mentioned above (and the stuff in 52 that led in/Final Crisis), it's just top to bottom full of wonderful ideas and big fun superhero stuff. I love it without reservations.

Man, it was hard to form thoughts about this book other than "This is fucking awesome." Also without, y'know, gushing with spoilers. Seriously, everyone just read it.

I have totally done this with Crossroads and it's about the best dick move ever.

That's a horrendous lie.

Oh, I loved this. The first bits with Wolverine being vulnerable for the first time and having to learn to fight differently were great, it had solid emotional beats, Wolvie stabbing Yakuza and Ninjas and Samurai. And fucking Mariko and Yukio were AWESOME, especially given it was both of the actor's first movie role ever (both are fashion models in Japan). I also really liked the big ending.

I don't know if it's worst ever, but Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters was pretty fucking bad.It has no pace or flow to speak of, stuff just kind of happens. There's a scene where Hansel is looking for Gretel and Gretel is lost in the woods and then the next scene is Hansel coming up on a house where Gretel is and it is also their childhood home which they've never been able to find. And I mean, after like two minutes. It's jarring. The whole thing is written in a classical setting, but everything is handled in a modern context Things like a random bar girl being turned off by Jeremy Renner, very good looking man who also kills monsters. In that period. Also, Ye Olde Guns and Ye Olde Taser. Throw in the fact that the heroes are useless, a REALLY uncomfortable near-gang-rape scene with Gretel, the dumb ogre with a heart of gold, and the fact that no one really cares enough to deliver more than minimal effort and you have an epic trainwreck on every level.