Avengers, Blades, and just one mention of the Wasteland...
Disney XD debuted "The Avengers," and I have to admit, it out-classes my own childhood superhero standard, "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends." In just first six minutes, there's more than enough Marvel continuity to delight any comics fan. This, hopefully, made up for the dreadful theme song. The animators apparently have enough of a budget to have a little fun (we get a car airbag gag in the background of one scene) and they're showing off some creativity (Thor stops a car flying towards someone by smashing it to the ground rather than by going the usual route of catching it). The violence covers itself as "kid friendly" by the use of laser beams (which have been "safe" since G.I. Joe times) or unconventional use of superpowers (myself, I find the concept of being turned into a stone statue and then pushed over, resulting in cracks to my body seems pretty terrifying when you think about it). There's still a little rebooting going on, as Iron Man has never met Hawkeye before, Fury is an amalgam of the gray-haired classic version and his "Ultimate" comic line counterpart, and Asgard has some fairly Gaiman-esque mythology to it from the get-go. I'm not up on my current Hulk, but he's pretty smart and able to form complete sentences in this production.
And Jeffery "Re-Animator" Combs is "The Leader," which instantly raises the awesome-o-meter by five points.
Anyway, it's one of the more ambitious premieres to a superhero franchise, featuring a huge cast of characters, promising a lot of variety to come. Sure, the bad guy is fairly standard "overpowered madman" fare, but it beats having Fin-Fang-Foom or someone similar show up. Given the level of destruction on display, there must be at least one appearance by Damage Control. :)
Sticking with comics in the media, Wesley Snipes wants to return as "Blade" for some new films, but that ship may have already sailed into reboot territory without him. I have to say, "Blade" was a pleasant surprise when I first saw it, and is still a halfway-decent horror-action shlockfest. It was also released a year before "The Matrix" would come along and help drive martial arts in black leather into the ground. When it came out, vampires were pretty much set in the Anne Rice mold, and "Vampire: The Masquerade" had been expanding the concept of the idea of a centuries-old vampire network that's been running mankind's affairs since forever. In steps Blade who pretty much takes all of this high-falootin' aristocracy with fangs and just starts stomping on it and running it through with his katana. The movie did commit a minor sin of having its (warning: blood 'n' violence) best action sequence in the first ten minutes. The sequels went downhill in a manner not unusual to action and horror (though the second was still pretty good, thanks to the introduction of Predator-like vamps), culminating in a cast playing the bad guys in "Blade: III" that I'm assuming came from an acting class run by a mime using cue cards to teach.
Even if you haven't been playing "Fallout: New Vegas," you might find the clip of a rather extraordinary bug on this page interesting. It takes place at the very beginning of the game, so it's spoiler-free, though it may make you think you've stepped into a "Silent Hill" sequel. :) A patch has been released that should have fixed the problem by now.
Now I'm heading to bed. That unmentionable (as of yet) writing dealie took its first step long into the wee hours last night, as I put the finishing touches on the first draft. I'm pretty pleased with it, but it'll be up to the editor and the folks who own the characters to let me know if I dun good or not. I'm hoping they'll let me share some of it with you before it goes to print early next year. And speaking of print, I was shown the cover and interior indicia pages for the "North 40" trade paperback, due out next month; it's looking VERY nice, I think. If you get a copy, try to spot the hidden self-portrait I submitted.
So while I try to remember what the insides of my eyelids look like...
- If you want a pop star to lend their music to a rock-sim video game, disparage the idea of them actually doing it. That said, "Piano Man" was hard when I tried to play it as a kid.
- Our country may not be planning any moon missions, but by 2025, China, India, and Japan (or at least, Japan's robots) may have a presence there.
- In the meantime, video game scientists have been using Minecraft to launch sheep incredible distances. Due to popular demand, the researchers behind this activity self-tested the device. SCIENCE!
- You know how everyone has a Monopoly set just lying around the house? Here's the one Donald Trump probably has in the back of a closet somewhere.
- Why one of Robert Heinlein's "Rules of Writing" could mess up your writing. I agree; some of my favorite work happened after an edit or three.
- It's In3structo Tank, the third in the indestructible tank-projectile game. Let yourself get blasted into the air and ram your enemies as you fly.
- C'thulhu has a new form with which he haunts the dreams of men: As pot pies.
- They've finally cast Bilbo in 'The Hobbit.' Most of us probably saw him as the latest incarnation of Arthur Dent or as Watson in the BBC's "Sherlock."
- Up to 20% of peak internet traffic in the U.S. is Netflix streaming. It could be higher among households ashamed to admit they're using a Wii to do it (I keed, I keed, I just wish they'd made their current controllers 3 years ago).
- Just in case you're wanting a "sexy" (and that word is subject to opinion) comics-related costume for Halloween, here's a list of comics-related costumes that, while SFW, are kind of brain-bending when you think about the marketing departments that gave some of them the green light.
- This game may be too cute for words, but it's got a parrot in it and a pirate theme, so let's just play Squawk. Press the buttons on the edge of the playfield to attract the spherical parrot and grab all of the coins. Sounds simple enough, but it becomes a lot like those ball-bearing maze games I played as a kid...