After this, Leonardo had an urge to take up dentistry.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures volume 2 #2
Archie Comics Publications & Mirage Studios (May, 1989)
“Return Of The Shredder” part 2
ADAPTATION/ARTIST/LETTERER: Dave Garcia
ORIGINAL SCRIPTS: Cristy Marx & David Weiss
COLORIST: Barry Grossman
EDITOR: Victor Gorelick
Somewhere between the Toho movies and the questionable remake, UK horror legend Hammer Films wanted to make their own King Kong remake. They didn’t get the chance, as this article goes into.
For a bonus read here’s my review of the remake we got when I finally got to watch it. Even my dad thought it was bad while overhearing me watching it. This is one time we were definitely not better off.
So if I’m counting A Christmas Carol as an “original” story, as in “not a licensed property book”, I can do another licensed property book. That was my shortest book review and I’m pretty sure nothing will top Seduction Of The Innocent, and that book can die in a fire. Batman: Knightfall was rather long but this should be normal for a paperback novel.
It’s time to return to Star Trek and the original crew, and I’m hoping this isn’t a disappointment like the last two that got the Chapter By Chapter treatment. Enterprise: The First Adventure suffered from giving everybody a dark backstory while Prime Directive was a good story that nothing to do with the Prime Directive, save for an attempt to use it to force the Federation to fix their mistakes. This one is a bit promising, but that’s because of the personal history with this one.
I picked up The IDIC Epidemic and very much enjoyed it at the time, and someday I’ll cover that one with fingers crossed. I liked Enterprise: The First Adventure when I first read it, though apparently my mind just forgot the parts I didn’t like. In the open of the novel it mentions being a sequel to a previous novel by the author, taking place just after that story, but that I didn’t need that one to enjoy the one in my hand. However, and this is how it’s done for those of you creating shared universes, while I followed events just fine without it I enjoyed the book and references enough that I eventually picked up the first book with these secondary characters taking place on Vulcan. This is what we’re going to review first, to follow the proper order, even if we don’t need it to get to The IDIC Epidemic. As it turned out I was happy to have picked up book #20 in the Star Trek novel series (the other book was #38, so the sequel took awhile) and #23 in the Chapter By Chapter review series….
The costumes live up to the name anyway.
The Strangers #1
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (June, 1993)
“Jumpstart”
WRITER: Steve Englehart
PENCILER: Rick Hoberg
INKER: Tim Burgard
COLOR DESIGN: Paul Mounts
LETTERER: Tim Eldred
EDITOR: Chris Ulm
This is an odd comment to make but I need to make it anyway. These credits were all over the place. There’s a pattern I’m used to when it comes to comic credits: writer, penciler, inker, colorist & letterer sometimes get switched around, and then the editors. This just seemed to be whatever name the responsible party wanted to put up next.
With news that Rey will do what Luke didn’t and get another movie, fans of classic Star Wars are being forced to hear from the defenders of Disney Star Wars and Kathleen Kennedy that “Luke was totally a Mary Sue so why do you keep calling Rey that?”. Writing for Bleeding Fool, author A.H. Lloyd goes over Luke’s journey in the original trilogy and why Luke is absolutely not a Mary Sue or Gary Stu or whatever you want to call him.
Today is the last day of 2023 and the last day of my time off. I wish I could go on about how productive it was…but thanks to insomnia and other sleeping issues I ended up sleeping through most of it getting caught up on the sleep I missed at night during the day. I did decide that I really like the theme I’m already using for BW Media Spotlight, and that I can do certain tweaks to my liking, which I may do over the next few days and weeks.
The Clutter Reports returns next week and I want to try do something with The Tronix Tumblr and YouTube because I have those options so I might as well use it. Even X-Twitter is being seen as a potential video platform. For example, Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News contributor who…well, we won’t get into all that drama. Point is he moved his show to TwitterX and I’ve a few other online personas making use of it. I probably won’t but I do want to adjust my feeds so that the official BW feed is just for researching article topics while using my personal feed, with only exists because pre-X Twitter screwed up my official feed for a while, will have more personal interest. Both will still promote my work, because that’s also personal interest.
Here at the Spotlight, the comic order is back to what it was before the Christmas season: Turtles on Monday, Sonic on Wednesday, the remains of my ComiXology library on Thursday, Star Power on Friday, and Blue Beetle on Saturdays. Why yes, “Turtle Tuesday” or “Turtle Thursday” would be more alliterative. Yes, I could move Turtles to Tuesday…in fact I will. So what’s on Monday’s? Well, I did want to work on Malibu’s Ultraverse (using the…legally questionable sites but it’s not like Marvel is using jack anything with it so I kind of don’t care at this point) so why not Malibu Monday? Okay, you talked me into it.
Note for you Ultraverse fans (I know one person encouraged me to explore the Ultraverse when I suggested the possibility–only one but I can’t even get polls with a decent amount of responders): I cannot get Google to show me a simple list of comics by release date, nor any research site I currently have in my bookmarks, nor do I want to spend the rest of my life trying to find one. I have one reading order suggestion list with a few marked “essential” and that’s it. That’s what I’m going by. So if I miss one that’s not in one of the series I’ve opted to continue reading beyond the essentials, whether it’s on the list or not, let me know. I won’t follow any series because I wouldn’t have back in the day. I’m starting with The Strangers #1 and if that’s not the best introduction to the Ultraverse, I’m currently writing this in anger so I don’t care. Hopefully I will when you comment and I’ll have to get caught up next week like I did with the Sonic and Knuckles comics when the Mammoth Mogul story got out of position. That’s all I can do. The internet has proven useless again. {sigh} Okay, moving on.
Also Monday the newest Chapter By Chapter novel will be revealed. I have an article planned about the current state of New Who and what connection I have to it (not officially, mind you), as we’ll resume the Many, MANY Intros of Spider-Man with the 1990s and work to finish season one of the Transformers: Beast Machines writer’s bible before moving to season two. As for what else is coming, I’m at a point where I don’t want to promote something I may not be able to commit to, because that’s a bad habit I want to break. There will be changes as comics end but we’ll cross that when we get to it.
I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year’s. See in you 2024…aka tomorrow! It’s back to work and I don’t have to worry about a hangover.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 
BW Vs Variety> The Fall Of The Comic Book Movie Is Preventable
Here we go again. There are times I almost feel repetitive, bringing the same horse back for another post-mortem beating, but the problem is there’s always some new voice between me and the glue factory. Speaking of beatings, check out that metaphor!
Our latest voice in the “superhero fatigue” movement is Variety contributor Owen Gleiberman and his article, “Why The Fall Of Comic Book Movie Culture Is Inevitable“. The URL drops the names Superman, Batman, and Deadpool for the search engines. I just stick with the title and put names in tags, but they’re the big name website and industry trade publication and I’m the blogger. What do I know? I know he’s wrong in some of his theories in this article, that’s what I know. Variety is part of the Hollywood machine and the elitists still look down on geek culture even while the businessmen see dollar signs because untapped markets equal money. There are those in the entertainment machine who look down on superheroes and comic books…and sadly too many of them are currently making superhero movies.
Admittedly, I actually do think Gleiberman makes some good points or I wouldn’t even bother doing another of these. At this point I’ve gotten sick of trying to explain why a bunch of elitist snobs are wrong about superheroes and totally ignoring their own biases against superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, and other things people like me enjoy–but I’ll totally admit my own biases. I just posted a Christmas superhero minicomic for kids and today I reviewed a comic featuring genetically altered amphibians who are really good at martial arts. Pretty sure I can’t hide that bias, but I’m willing to admit it while still being objective enough that I can tell a lot of this is the “cool kids” trying to speak the end of superheroes into existence. Gleiberman doesn’t come off as that far, but he is part of the Hollywood system, so he’s not without suspicion. Still, let’s see what he actually says, what he got right, and what he got wrong. That’s what I do around here.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on January 2, 2024 in DC Spotlight, Marvel Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged BW versus, commentary, DC Extended Universe, DC Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe, movies, Variety.
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