Jumping in Headfirst

My friends and I watched Iron Fist last weekend, despite all the middling reviews I'd seen littered over the internet.  Already by the time we started Friday night it felt like it had gone past harsh reviews to kicking a dead horse.  But we gave it a shot anyway, and I was...unimpressed, to put it mildly.   The series has a very slow start, a decent middle, and an utterly garbage ending.  Danny's naivete goes far past being charming into making him look like a child, while the Meachum plot takes center stage often enough and in enough episodes that they're almost co-main characters. I didn't want to believe it.  When the poor reviews came out, I wanted to write them off as people being merely frustrated by Marvel's choice to go with a white Danny Rand rather than an Asian-American, a popular sentiment around the time the internet was speculating who would play the titular character.  But no, the show is simply mediocre, and easily the worst of the...

Sorry about this week's episode being a bit late.  I had to do some...things to acquire a subbed version.

In 2012 I discovered the biggest, best fantasy RPG consoles had seen in years.  No, not Skyrim;  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, my GOTY of 2012 and also winner of the most ridiculous title.   Of course, I'm aware that Skyrim is by far the bigger name, with the TES franchise actually having a guaranteed chance at a sequel, while Amalur is wrapped in so much legal tape the behind-the-scenes story of its developer is almost more intriguing than the game's actual plot.  Still, it was Amalur that captivated me with its far more colorful world, gorgeous and inventive character and armor designs, and addictive battle system.

Alters And so the first arc of Alters comes to an end--with a surprisingly brutal slugfest between Matter Man and Chalice, as after being captured at the end of the last issue, our hero discovers a major flaw in Matter Man's abilities: they can't be used for more than sixty-one seconds.  Its a unique flaw, and I do feel like it was a bit convenient considering there wasn't really a hint beforehand, but I can't get too mad at it.  For one, the weakness is clever, and for another my argument for new comics and unproven characters is always to tell shorter stories.  Twelve year long epics assume an interest fans may not even have, while short arcs allow you to give a quick overview of the world and if a story doesn't click, the next one will be out shortly afterwards.  Here the story is over after the fifth issue, and next we can move on to (hopefully) bigger and better things for Chalice and her squad. All in all, not a bad start to a budding new hero's adv...

As Marvel starts to gear up for its "Generations" project, which is supposed to be taking steps to restore many of the classic elements to the Marvel Universe believed by some to be missing lately, I wanted to talk about diversity for a bit.  I'd like to bring up a step that all too often is left out of the discussion: execution, specifically in terms of introduction of legacy characters. The increasingly politicized nature of the internet is such that every issue has taken on an "us vs. them" mindset.  In comics, nowhere is this more pronounced than with respect to the introduction of diverse characters into the superhero landscape.  You're either with the idea of change or against, and from there people make inferences on everything from your political leanings to your attitudes towards other races, the opposite sex, and the LGBT spectrum.  Without making a value judgment on how much sense that makes, I would like to go ahead and establish some things...

  Batwoman If Kate's thing is "doing things Batman can't" she's going to end up with a very small wheelhouse that includes "knitting" and "has sex with girls".  I know you wanna get mad at that second one, but...let's be honest here: if you take Selina out of the equation, when was the last time Bruce slept with anyone at all?   Jezebel Jet was ten years ago, and she was revealed to be a villain.  Dude's been "Bat-dad" more than "Gotham's most eligible bachelor" for years . In any case, Batwoman's adventures begin with her tracking down people who've bought the Monster Serum and intending to use themselves as biological WMDs only to wind up tracking down the organization selling it to--where else--a place where she has deep, emotional ties: Coryana, a place that looks more like DC's Madripoor every time they flashback to it, a place where crime lords rule and anything goes. But nevermind all ...

The nine heroes are finally gathered together~!

Wooo!  This week's episode was heavy on the emotional stuff.  I have to admit, even I was getting a little misty-eyed by the end.

1.) This week's episode opened with some Cadmus members kidnapping a family of aliens singing to Bruno Mars' 24K Magic.  If there was ever a situation in which a person should've taken a moment to realize they took a wrong turn in life somewhere, it had to be when that one Cadmus member was chasing a terrified young girl through a forest.  Seriously, if your behavior lines up with that of a pedophile in a thriller movie, it's probably time to re-evaluate. That was pretty much the trend all over this episode, as Cadmus repeatedly attacked aliens who were just going about day to day life.  It got down to an outright parody of the travel ban near the end when they started talking about deporting the aliens to Takron Galtos--which, for those who aren't uber-geeks, is a prison planet.

The "final" Kyuuranger takes the stage!   Before things started would anyone else have believed it was going to be Pink?    That's...kinda awesome, right?

Woo, I haven't done one of these in ages, but this year's is pretty good.  Courtesy of Neregate , here's your giant chart. And of course, if you like there's also AniChart and my personal favorite, LiveChart .  Now if I can be done plugging other sites, let's get down to the picks!

I'm super late with this, and I'm so sorry!