Jumping in Headfirst

Author's Note: Bottom of the Pile is a weekly column (or at least, my attempt at said) in which I cover the comics that found their way to the bottom of my pile, thus being the best as I've always been a proponent of "saving the best for last".   Since bog standard reviews can be found literally anywhere, coverage can range from mini-reviews to funny comments to commentary on a creator's run or comics as a whole, depending on a wide range of factors including the comic itself, the amount of time I have, and my general mood. 

Kalamazoo-based rapper DeLaZoo returns with a fresh new song with a catchy, uptempo beat. It's been about a year since he dropped his last project, "Elsewhere Better", so it's good to see he's been staying polished as I always thought he had one of the better flows out of these YouTube rappers. Looking forward to what else he has planned this year.

And, we're back.

Despite a brief period of absolute darkness , Gundam's actually been having a fairly good time lately.   Entering their 35th anniversary, Gundam launched October's Gundam Build Fighters series to surprising fanfare.   What was thought to be a sad attempt by Bandai to force toys down fans' throats turned out to be...well, an awesome way for Bandai to shove toys down fans' throats.  (I mean, it's still a toy commercial...it's just a well done one.) And as the current season winds down while fans hope for a second season, Gundam has just recently held a live event, "Gundam 35th Anniversary - Rise!", to show us the current future of Gundam.

QP (from Innuendo) is a weird cat.  His bars are probably the weirdest in the game besides Daylyt that can still be considered "good", and yet his performances seem to just depend on who he's up against and whether he takes you seriously or not.  When he's up against Remyd he's performing at such a crazy level he convinces the guy to join Innuendo.   Then when he's up against some random guy for whatever's left of Grindtime I'm not even sure he knows he's battling. In this case though, no punches pulled.  Qleen pulls off some decent bars, but if this battle was over changing the name, he gotta stop being QP now and leave that to the Innuendo guy.

All-New X-Factor Because that's just what you do when your teammate's evil or brainwashed or lost their memory in the X-Men: you kiss them.  Apparently their ability to feel romantic inclinations is irrelevant. All-New X-Men  This just highlights how silly this story is at it's core.  The Jean Grey that actually did these things is very, very dead.  The Phoenix is currently gone.  Most of her family is dead, whether because of the Shi'ar or not--so what's the point of this trial, at all?  Bendis has just one more issue to tell us, since the crossover is over soon...   Astro City It's a fair question, I think.  But then, I'm not exactly sure how you make a Xyzometer.   Come to think of it, given Samaritan's timeline doesn't exist anymore, he may not know either. Black Widow Really, Natasha?   I find this hard to believe.  Honestly, just how many high-level superhero/super-spies can there be?...

) Okay, see this music video and song are actually interesting for a couple reasons.  First off, because it'll probably be one of the few times I'll be using The Shuffle to talk about a song that, on first impression, I don't actually enjoy, lol. Now my not liking an m-flo song is nothing new--the closest thing they have to an album with zero skippable tracks for me is COSMICOLOR, and if I'm not in the right mood I'll skip Love Long and Prosper at "Soko wa, saigo no Frontier..."   I've never tried to portray them as a perfect group, just one that I really enjoyed. With Fly , I noticed a couple things about half way into the video: - The video itself is gorgeous, and probably the single most representative video for the experience m-flo has tried to provide with it's music almost since day one: the idea of leaving Earth behind for the stars and having intergalactic parties at space station clubs.   Whoever directed this is a genius and shou...

) Nothing like a good 3-0 to brighten my day.   Danny is quickly climbing the ranks and has pretty much already cracked into my top 10 with his performances against Rum Nitty , Mark Miner , and Young B the Future , so this kind of thing is pretty much expected.  Also, it's about time for Danny to hit that big stage.  Hopefully I'll see him at a KOTD event (NEVER a big URL thing I hope--they ruin everything) in the future. 

) This song is super generic to be honest.  Like the epitome of super-catchy, easily digested pop music. But I'm honestly not that upset about it.   SQUARE ONE was borderline unlistenable for me aside from it's three singles due to the abundance of dubstep.  Their follow-up, NEVEN?   Not too much better.   I remember One in a Million being an excellent dance track, and then there was No Way, where Verbal actually rapped (remember when he did that all the time?  ), and after that you can keep most of that one too.  So if the feel of Future is Now is more along the line of this, where I can at least listen to the music instead of wanting to throw my laptop out the window?   We're doing great. Now, speaking of SQUARE ONE...you'll notice that, much like they did on SQUARE ONE, on this song m-flo has teamed up with someone from a popular K-Pop group, this time it's BIG BANG.   To start out, this isn't new at all--m-flo did thi...

Gundam Build Fighters is probably one of my favorite anime to come out of the last few seasons, and while the first OP was pretty incredible, this one is shockingly an improvement.  (Though to be fair both have the energy and hype-building power that a show like this needs for it's opening.)  I've been a BACK-ON fan since Chain , but they've always been missing something that I couldn't quite figure out until this song: they needed a better vocalist.   I don't know who or where they found this new girl, but...yeah.  They should keep her. 

Avengers A.I. G ame shows must be a cinch in Latveria. Forever Evil Captain Cold explaining the key differences between Johnny Quick of Earth-3 and the Flash of New Earth.  Personally I think the whole having two legs thing is more important, but that may just be me. Iron Man Arno Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man 2020, was a character originally created in the early 80's by writer Tom DeFalco.  He was everything people thought Tony Stark was: a jerk mercenary using the advanced technology for his own personal gain.   Here Kieron Gillen is finally allowing the new Arno to wear a version of the Iron Man 2020 armor, but what's most interesting is that: When Arno Stark was originally created, the year 2020 was some super far-off future most people could barely imagine.  Now it's all of six years away.   I won't be around to see it, but if superhero comics still exist then, you all know one day the Justice League of America and the Le...

The other half of the JC vs. Chilla of 2014 makes an appearance at Blackout 4.   His performance here pretty much catapults him to being worthy of at least one shot at the top tier.  Also?  Nitty's 3rd is one of the best third verses I've heard in a long-ass time.  Tycoon Tax wasn't terrible, but Rum Nitty comfortable 3-0'd him.  Only problem I had with this battle?  At one point Nitty compared himself to Tay Roc.   ....Fuck outta here.    From what I've seen of Roc, the only way Rum Nitty wouldn't bodybag him is if he choked from being on the big stage (the Ill Will effect) or he took him light and didn't write for him (the JC).  I swear some of these "top tier" guys get way more respect than they deserve.

Back again.  My apologies for being late, but school has grown to be quite the pain as the months go on. Aquaman 28 Old, old school imperialism at play here.  "We built something here, so that means you don't own it all anymore!"   Who exactly thought it'd be a good idea to possibly start another international incident with Atlantis?  The last one didn't exactly go well... All-New X-Men 23 "They aren't coming to get her!  They can't!" This argument would carry more weight if Earthlings in the Marvel Universe weren't constantly in space.  Hell, currently one of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard is an Earthling.   In light of this information though, they all sound fairly silly.  Hawkeye 15 The thing I've never understood about how this comic works is all the Avengers references.  How much of a threat can you make on Clint, realistically?  You can't kill him.  You kill him, you alert the Avengers, and that's ...