February 2, 2025

Jake & Leon #629> Prep This!

Batman doesn’t specialize in anything, including preparation.

Can we stop pretending Batman could be God with “prep time”? Yes, he can strategize, come up with plans to stop his friends (I hope he has contingencies for the foes of the DC universe but we never hear about them, not even the Gotham villains he usually fights), and has all kinds of gadgets. He still doesn’t have a clean win/loss record, and Bane’s apparently better at coming up with plans to ruin Bruce’s life than Ra’s Al Ghul. Stop complaining Superman is “too powerful” and then being sure Batman could stop anyone if he has enough prep time. Also, what happens if he doesn’t? Dead Batman, that’s what happens.

Over at The Clutter Reports this week I can happily report on a completed declutter project (with a few minor issues to clean up) because my personal records are now organized.

I should also note the passing of John Erwin, the voice of He-Man in the original He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe. My condolences to his family and friends, and my thanks for bringing one of my childhood heroes and inspirations to life.

Well, this should be an interesting week. No writer’s guide to review for a while, and still no new DC Heroes United, making me wonder if they’re seeing more flaws in this project behind the scenes that I’ve begun noticing. I hope they at least finish the story, even if they can’t finish the game. The point is, outside of the comic reviews and the next chapter of Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image, I have a week to discuss anything. Now I just need the entertainment industry to do something stupid beyond the culture war (so I don’t have to talk about a certain Oscar-nominated movie that has everyone united in its destruction on both wings of the bird because I ain’t touching that garbage) and I should be all set. Are the fires over? Are they getting back to work? Then something stupid should be on the way. Or they could surprise me with something to celebrate! I doubt it, but you can’t be pessimist all the time, right? Maybe I’ll find happier topics this week as well. We’ll see.

Have a great week, everyone!

Posted by on February 2, 2025 in DC Spotlight, Jake & Leon and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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February 1, 2025

Saturday Night Showcase> A Taste Of Star Trek’s Second Pilot: Studio Edition

This is going to be a short intro because I don’t know the full story of this edition. Still, I thought this compilation of videos was a good connection to our recently completed look at the guide and original sales pitch for the original Star Trek.

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” is the first official episode of Star Trek, although “The Man Trap” was the first one aired. “Where No Man…” was also the second pilot, NBC having rejected “The Cage” and asked for certain changes, which led to the Star Trek we know and love.

Recently I stumbled up a collection of 4K. 48 frames per second remasters by Tales From SYL Ranch DARKROOM on YouTube. This is how they describe what we’re about to see:

There is an edit of STAR TREK’s second pilot known as the STUDIO EDITION that has a number of differences from the aired edit. It was screened only to studio and network execs. This is the first scene, now remastered to 4K/48fps, fresh from the Tales From SYL Ranch DARKROOM! 👍

Original Shooting Date: July 19, 1965 I

IMDB Entry For Aired Version: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061027/

Remastered With:

So my guess is, like we saw earlier this week with Knight Rider, this was a version screened for the network executives who didn’t have time to watch the full version, or this was a partially completed one so they didn’t spend all their time on all the details until they got the greenlight for the version we eventually saw. “The Cage” would of course show up later, reworked into “The Menagerie” as stock footage while the original finally made it to television when Sci-Fi Channel did a tribute marathon for the show’s anniversary.

Tonight I’m bringing you those clips, and you can go the clips’ respective YouTube pages to see the comments and further information. Remember that this isn’t the full episode. Someone doesn’t want to get sued by Paramount or whoever ends up buying them as of this writing. I’m surprised this is up given all the games I had to play just to keep the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles intros around and I’m afraid to check to see how many are dead video embeds now. Still, this is rather fascinating. Enjoy.

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Posted by on February 1, 2025 in Saturday Night Showcase, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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February 1, 2025

BW’s Saturday Article Link> Ubisoft Continues To Dig A “Shadow”y Grave

 

I remind you, the French development team who really needed to upgrade the only black guy in Japanese history anyone heard of. More crackers than a saltines box.

With everything that the creators of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has done to tick off Japan and annoy the general gaming community and fans of the franchise, having one of them say that they don’t want to tell Japan their culture because they already know it is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Spencer Baculi of Bounding Into Comics goes into the full statement and why it makes no sense when you’re actually paying attention to everything surrounding this game, including stuff I’ve brought up in prior posts.

Posted by on February 1, 2025 in Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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January 31, 2025

The Many, MANY Intros Of Spider-Man> Your Friendly Neighborhood

I saw the preview for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, seen above if the embed still works. I’m not impressed.

I don’t have Disney+, and this gives me less reason to do so. Let’s count the failures:

  1. For the second time in a row if you don’t count shows for five year olds (although I do) we have Peter going to a genius high school, like with Marvel’s Spider-Man on Disney XD.
  2. Is May still Peter’s aunt? In addition to another deaged Aunt May we never see Peter call her “Aunt May”, just “May”.
  3. Looks like we’re going for a time paradox or something interdimensional as Doctor Strange fights a symbiote victim of some kind by the looks of it.
  4. The animation isn’t the worst I’ve seen but the aforementioned five year olds show was better.
  5. See that kid at the school that looks like Flash Thompson and thus shouldn’t be at a genius school? He’s not Flash Thompson.
  6. Peter will never be seen in the proper Spidey costume if all the trailers and clips are to be believed. It will, however, have a lot of cringe humor that makes Ultimate Spider-Man look hilarious in comparison.
  7. Apparently “radioactive spider” was too much for this one so they swiped Miles Morales’ power origin from the Spiderverse movies. Which DID have the radioactive spider as Peter’s origin.
  8. Peter’s social awkwardness issues in high school got turned up past 11 on this. Another thing they got from Miles and the Spiderverse, and I’m not the only one to notice this. I wasn’t even the first. Someone else mentioned it and after seeing the clips I have to agree.

Surprisingly it’s the series available on demand that brought back the intro, something that two of the three shows I just mentioned didn’t have. (Advantage: five year olds.) Even more surprising? Apparently the theme song cares more about Spider-Man than the animation and show. It was in the above clip, but let’s isolate and examine it.

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Posted by on January 31, 2025 in Animation Spotlight, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Streaming Spotlight, The Many Intros Of and tagged , , , , .

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January 31, 2025

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Amazing Mystery Funnies V2 #11

It’s amazing how dangerous this fair seems to be.

Amazing Mystery Funnies #15 (v2 #11)

Centaur Publishing (November, 1939)

I still don’t know why “Funnies” is in the name when these are pretty much serious stories. Odd? Well, this month we have a fairground based superhero battling a robot, strange worlds, a centaur crimefighter, and evil psychics, but this isn’t called “Amazing Mystery Oddities”. With new tales and ongoing chapters awaiting us, let’s dive in.

[Read along with me here]

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Posted by on January 31, 2025 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , .

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January 31, 2025

BW’s Daily Video> Why Canon And Continuity Matters In Comics & Adaptations

Catch more from Youngrippa59 on YouTube

If something is changed from the source material, it’s the adaptation that’s wrong and the source material shouldn’t change to match the errors just to sell comics. If the adapters cared, and there are limits to how strict you can be with the source canon due to change in media and audience focus, they would get it right. However, Hollywood thinks they’re better than comics and thus what they want matters more than something lower on the media pecking order than the stuff they make and approve of. See also cartoons, video games, and anything nostalgic that they aren’t nostalgic for.

Posted by on January 31, 2025 in Comic Spotlight and tagged , , .

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January 30, 2025

A Recreation Of Knight Rider’s Pilot Presentation

Filler video time because I needed a nap this afternoon after not so much a lousy night’s sleep so much as a lousy waking up.

Pilots used to be how show creators showed off that they could pull off the pitch they used to sell the network or syndicator on a project. It’s sort of a proof of concept, usually the same quality as the final show so they can use it as the first episode, but occasionally it’s a lot cheaper looking simply to show the network to pay for a proper first episode.

When putting out Knight Rider for NBC, Glen A. Larson put together a half-hour proof of concept pilot out of the footage he was putting together for a full first episode, the TV Movie/two-parter (depending on how it airs or is put on home video) we the audience got to see. While that video is currently lost in the halls of time (or possibly some dude’s basement), the YouTube channel Knight Riders Historians Official gave us an idea of what it might have looked like. I’m guessing that’s the official channel for a group of Knight Rider historians and not Universal actually creating a group to keep track of their currently unused franchise. That would be why we don’t get a proper recreation with surviving clips, as that would get them hit by Universal with copywrite strikes, but an explanation of what scenes they used and what was shot just for the pilot. Take a look.

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Posted by on January 30, 2025 in Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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