BW’s Daily Video> Supervillains Improved By Retcons

Catch more from WhatCulture Comics on YouTube

 

BW Programming Note: This Week Will Be A Bit Off

I really need to schedule doctor visits and blood tests on the week I don’t have to do the monthly bulk shopping. And this week I also have to vote and get an MRI done, plus I’m trying to get some cell phone issues dealt with so I don’t lose that. In other words I had to fight to get stuff out last week and I still missed Saturday Night Showcase to fail at getting closer to a Let’s Play, as I went over yesterday and copy/pasted to The Clutter Reports this week.

In other word I don’t know what’s going to happen this week. We do have the next installment of the Chapter By Chapter review of Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image and the second section of the writer’s guide for Star Trek: Pitch & Guide. I also don’t want to leave Sonic The Hedgehog on a cliffhanger. Otherwise, if I miss a post this week, I miss a post. There isn’t much I can do about it to retain my sanity. I would hope to also have a Jake & Leon next week and get that tweaked logo done, and get a step closer to producing that Let’s Play.

So my apologies if I go dark for a day or part of the day. Know that I’ll be very annoyed but we have yet more hurdles right to end of the year I was hoping would be my most productive, decluttering, and creative year. Hope you all have a great week.

The Continuing Annoyance Of Getting That Let’s Play Going

No Saturday Night Showcase or Jake & Leon this week (I will have an update tomorrow on what’s coming) because in addition to just a week of being pulled away from the computer (and next week will be the same annoyance) I was distracted with trying to finally move forward with that Let’s Play series I wanted to do 10 #$%$#%#$% YEARS AGO!!!!!! At least that’s when I posted the poll to choose between five different games to see what order I would put them in. The goal was to do a story based game play series, called BW Gameplay, that would focus on the story, after seeing so many story based playthroughs where the player talked over the dialog. As a story person, I really want to hear the story. Talk over the gameplay, even if you have to do a voiceover later rather than a live playthrough.

Then I got sick, then I got a computer that wouldn’t run the first game on the list, and long story short I finally got that working on an emulation of the Gamecube version. Today I wanted to see if any of the games would work. They did not.

  1. Batman: Vengeance is the first game that was chosen in the poll…and then it wouldn’t run on the computer I had. It really doesn’t start on Windows 10, while the one I had was I think Windows 8. Maybe I could find a way to get that to run, but despite people online saying it’s possible, I could not get it to run on 10, and neither did my IT friend. (As in a friend of mine who has done IT for years.) This is the one I was able to emulate on a Gamecube emulator, and admittedly the video was better because it was less compressed.
  2. 007: Nightfire is the second chosen game. I haven’t gotten far in the game before and was looking forward to finishing all of these games. This one also is too old to run on Windows 10 but I have gotten it to work on older games. I could try to find a console emulation of this as well, but I would rather play these games on the version I actually own, and Batman: Vengeance was bad enough.
  3. Portal is the only game I’ve actually finished, but I wanted to explore the story again in review before finally playing the sequel. Admittedly this one not getting going could be the result of issues I was having with Steam, since the game won’t run without Steam. That bugged me when I got it. I bought it at a closing Circuit City for dirt cheap and was really looking forward to it…only to have to be forced to get a Steam account to play it. That’s still morally questionable, Valve, but here in 2024 game companies have done far worse. I got Steam sorted out but by then I stopped caring.
  4. Transformers: War For Cybertron may or may not run. The fourth game chosen, when I tried to install it the installer just sat there doing nothing. Portal doing that already made me mad so I gave up. I got partway through the Autobot campaign and really do want to give this game another try to finish.
  5. LA Noire tops the “block of five”, the games I wanted to open this let’s play series on. I didn’t even attempt to install it because of the same Steam issues. This will be interesting to play because the game has some swearing and I’m guessing some bloody murder scenes. As someone who likes to keep my content in the PG range I don’t know if I’ll be able to edit the videos. I wouldn’t be livestreaming any of them because you can’t talk to the chat and play at the same time. Plus I’m boring in livestream. This is the only game I have never played in this list and I would love to get to it, but it was the last one chosen by people who probably stopped waiting for it years ago. Again, 10 years have passed since I tried to start this. That’s the level of distractions I ‘ve had lately.

I think we have an old computer around here somewhere and I have copies of both Windows Vista and 8. That means if I can get the games running there, and a screen recorder that will record them, I can finally get this production going…or at least finally play and finish some of these games and have no worries about all the other old games I have to play. Hopefully next week’s Clutter Report will have an update on that plan. Given how this month has started, I’m not so convinced.

BW’s Saturday Article Link> Christian Authors vs Christian Fiction

“Christian fiction” is not an easy thing to get right. While “Christian music” is usually just hymns and gospel with a new music style (gospel is technically it’s own music genre but hopefully you get what I mean), Christian stories, and even Christian games, often push the message over the story. Sound familiar? I’m not saying you can’t make a good story with Christian themes and messages. Jesus used parables but they weren’t as heavy handed as some Christian media can get.

Author Brian Niemeier suggests a more subtle approach to how Christian themes and morals are introduced into a story, putting that story first and the messages and themes properly worked into them. Kind of like a certain other ideology that gets that wrong with less noble goals than saving your soul. This way, even if you aren’t winning them to Christ, you’re still telling a good story with a good overall message when “fire and brimstone” is not reaching your audience.

If We Can Recast T’Challa, Why Not Blade?

Full disclosure: That’s fan made, not official. Also, it’s not that I care about Blade, Marvel’s famed “daywalker” vampire hunter. All know about Blade comes from the Fox Kids Spider-Man cartoon. I don’t care about vampire stories in general, and I don’t need something to be rated “R” for me to think it’s good, including (and usually especially) superhero stories. I saw vampires on Saturday morning as far back as the 1970s who were still better than Twilight’s alterations because they were still a threat, though sometimes just to villains. Drak Pack is actually one of a few examples of crimefighting vampires. Exceptions exist like Count Von Count from Sesame Street, or Dingbat from Dingbat & The Creeps but one is teaching kids numbers and the other is a wacky comedy. Point is, I have no horse in this race, but this is something that’s odd to me and I would like to see if anyone can explain it.

See, I’m one of the voices that wanted T’Challa to be recast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the unfortunate passing of Chadwick Boseman, and I wonder if he would have taken on the role, knowing what we all know now between his health and the reactions at Marvel Studios to let the character die and replace him with his sister in violation of lore they couldn’t care less about because it came from a dirty comic book, that media for losers that they’re “improving” by making it all for and about them and screw you, geeks. The important people are taking your stuff because popularity is for them alone. Hollywood is so much like high school…but I’m getting off track.

The point is I’ve seen some of the same voices that were part of #RecastT’Challa on social media insisting that one way to get the ever-delayed MCU version of Blade out there to a happy audience is to forget Mahershala Ali, the actor who has seen his role trapped in development hell and bring back Wesley Snipes, who does enjoy the role and is currently between tax violations. Fans loved the Blade movies and I can understand that. What I can’t understand is the same people against replacing him are some of the same people willing to replace another Marvel hero.

Continue reading

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Keen Detective Funnies v2 #9

At least Masked Marvel doesn’t have to worry about exchanging insurance information.

Keen Detective Funnies vol 2 #9

Centaur Publishing (September, 1939)

I decided to write this one after writing the review, because at this point I’m not sure what to say with these anthologies. There are numerous creators and they’re credited in each story, while this section is usually for listing the writers, art team, letterer, and editors. So in this issue, prepare for fake stamps, kidnapped soldiers, ventriloquism, new characters, a continued story, and no Speed Centaur except in an ad for the comic…and one of the other Centaur Publishing comics, so make up your mind. Too bad, I can think of a couple stories I would have replaced with him, silly as his concept is.

[Read along with me here]

Continue reading

BW’s Daily Video> Recreating A Childhood Superhero

Catch more from XanderFlicks on YouTube and his comic website