June 11, 2023

Jake & Leon #560: The Dreamer

I know the feeling.

Yesterday was a very stressful day. As noted in this week’s Clutter Report, where a project I expected to be happening on the side ended up demanding my attention and taking me away from the supposedly easy main project, I have too many projects. It’s stressing me out a bit. So I’m going to do a short week this week.

Monday will be the usual because the Daily Quickpost is already scheduled, we have another installment of the Chapter By Chapter review of Batman: Knightfall, and the last of the Free Comic Book Day comics to go over. I also have a huge backlog of videos and articles for the quickposts so I’m going to try to burn through a few of those. Otherwise I won’t be doing any feature articles and possibly not even the comic reviews until I can get some of these projects handled. There will still be content but if I want to take my birthday week off in July I don’t want to spend it with all this other stuff forcing me to work anyway. At least you know it will all be interesting to watch and read, and it’s (hopefully) just for this week. My sanity demands it.

Have a great week, everyone. I’ll still be paying attention and if I make the headway I want there might still be at least one feature article prior to Saturday Night Showcase to check out if I can get it done.

Posted by on June 11, 2023 in Jake & Leon and tagged , , , .

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June 10, 2023

Saturday Night Showcase> Tron: Uprising

Between reviewing the sequel comics for Tron 2.0, the video game that was the sequel before decanonized in favor of the “more important” medium of live-action theatrical films, and getting to interview that comic’s co-writer, the Tron franchise is on my mind…and no, it doesn’t have any direct correlation to my screenname. The Tron franchise is not the juggernaut Disney had hoped it would be when Tron: Legacy came out but it does have a lot of attached media. Comics, video games–including appearances in the Kingdom Hearts series, have been out since the very first movie back in 1982.

However, only one animated series has ever been made for the franchise, though it seems to have all but disappeared.  2012’s Tron: Uprising is a Disney XD computer animated (of course) series set in the later days of the Grid prior to Sam’s arrival in Legacy and would set up the events of that movie between the comic prequel about the origins of the Grid and Clu’s descent into evil. Uprising would see Clu in control of the Grid and moving not only against ISOs but trying to quell all free thought and actions within the Grid. However, one program named Beck would come to stand against Clu’s agents in his part of the Grid and take on the identity of Tron to inspire the people. It’s a great show, though sadly I didn’t get the chance to watch the whole thing. I wanted to but scheduling kept falling through and now I need Disney+ to watch it, and guess who can’t get it.

Disney XD did release the first story, “Beck’s Beginning”, as a multipart series of shorts but doesn’t have a dedicated playlist for that alone. Their playlist also contains ads for various episodes of the show. So I collected the episode into one playlist, which you can see below (sorry for the odd divisions), and added in a mini-documentary by Jordan Fringe about the series and why it never got past the first season. I’ll post that separately in case you just want to watch that or put it in your Watch Later or something. Either way, enjoy.

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Posted by on June 10, 2023 in Animation Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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June 10, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #15

“Look over there! Sparky’s boat finally arrived!”

The Blue Beetle #15

Holyoke Publishing (October, 1942)

YOU CAN READ ALONG WITH ME HERE!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen (and various other modern identifiers I’m not going to explore), the moment you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! It’s THE OFFICIAL DEBUT OF SPARKY! I know, you’re all so very excited and have been waiting with baited breath but you’re wait is finally over! Sadly he’s not the only Spark here as “Spark” Stevens is still here, but we also have more V-Man, which I’m sure excites…somebody. But who cares! Sparky has arrived and…what you mean this is coming off as disingenuous and mocking? Just because he didn’t need a Bucky Barnes style sidekick but Holyoke put one in anyway because Captain America and Batman had one and it was done for lame reasons and nobody really remembers Sparkington J. Northrup? The heck you say! I’ll show you how awesome Sparky is.

Don’t worry, folks. This isn’t going to be a running gag.

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Posted by on June 10, 2023 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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June 9, 2023

BW Chats: Landry Walker Responds To My Tron 2.0 Comic Reviews

Welcome to a special print edition of BW Chats because I haven’t had access to online visual communication since Google Hangouts went down. All I have is a Skype account I can’t remember the last time I used. So I actually did this through the Twitter instant message system.

The original Tron may or may not be a successful franchise depending on your point of view. The 1982 movie was a splash of computer graphics, and even if some started out as regular animation as I’ve heard the end result showed what computers could do at the time. Not as advanced as you see now, but my Atari 800 couldn’t pull that stuff off. This led to two arcade games, more at home games than I realized if Wikipedia is to be believed, a sequel movie, an animated series, and even a few comic book adaptations.

Among those video games was Tron 2.0, an unofficial sequel rendered non-canon by Tron: Legacy, which I’ve reviewed before. The PC game and it’s tie-in for Game Boy Advance, Killer App, tells the story of Jet Bradley, son of Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner even returns to voice Alan in the game) and the late Lora Bradley, killed in a lab accident even though her actor, Cindy Morgan, returns as Ma3a and there’s speculation she contains computerized bits of Lora. Why even do that? Anyway, Jet makes “friends” with a girl program (don’t look at me, the original movie did it as well) named Mercury and together they try to purge Encom’s systems of a virus from a rival company or something. I didn’t get very far before my sucking at first-person shooters held me back. Someday I want to play it.

Among those comics was a tie-in to Tron 2.0, published by SLG Publishing, formerly Slave Labor Graphics. “The Ghost In The Machine” was a six issue comic in which Jet is called back to the computer world for…well, that’s where things get confusing. Here are links to my reviews.

[ISSUE #1|ISSUE #2|ISSUE #3|ISSUE #4|ISSUE #5|ISSUE #6]

The co-writers of this issue is no stranger to BW readers who have been here long enough to see my review of Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures In The Eight Grade. Landry Q Walker and Eric Jones were a great writing and art comic making team, including their own series also published by SLG Publishing, Little Gloomy. Perhaps you’ve seen the cartoon Scary Larry, which has the same cast but for whatever reason the goth girl got pulled from the spotlight in favor of the werewolf. In addition to Cosmic Adventures, currently my favorite comic miniseries, they also worked on the tie-in comic for Batman: The Brave & The Bold and Danger Club, all comics I’ve also reviewed. Sadly, Jones passed away in 2022 at 51 years old. I don’t know from what and I’m not going to pry.

I didn’t know Eric Jones, but I do know Landry. He found my reviews of Cosmic Adventures In The Eight Grade and we struck up an acquittance. He even wrote me to make sure I was okay in 2016 when the site and Twitter went dark because I was…experiencing 2016, which was appreciated on my part. Nice to know people care. Somehow he didn’t change his mind after my reviews of Danger Club, which I liked and there were some great characters and ideas but I felt too dropped in to connect with everyone. Great concept though: how do the sidekicks take over when all the heroes vanish? I did enjoy their whole run on Batman: The Brave And The Bold though. So when Tron: The Ghost In The Machine came into my schedule for “Yesterday’s” Comic I decided to warn him the reviews were coming. When I originally read the comic before starting this site I was rather confused by everything. Re-reading them for the reviews…only slightly less confused.

To my surprise, Landry was not only okay with the reviews but rather amused. Apparently stuff went down behind the scenes and he offered to do an interview after I was done reviewing the miniseries. That happened in the previous post so here’s that interview.

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Posted by on June 9, 2023 in Comic Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , , , .

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June 9, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Tron (2.0) #6

“I knew I shouldn’t have gotten the cheap ‘lazer circle’ knockoff!”

Tron #6

FINAL ISSUE

WRITERS: Landry Walker & Eric Jones

ARTIST: Michael Shoyket

COLORIST: Guru E-FX (which I just found out is the name of a colorist and not a coloring program; this is why I don’t like gag credits)

LETTERER: Douglas Dlin

EDITOR: Dan Vado

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Posted by on June 9, 2023 in Movie Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , .

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June 9, 2023

BW’s Daily Video> Use “Nintendo” Responsibly

Catch more from Guru Larry on YouTube

 

Posted by on June 9, 2023 in Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , .

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June 8, 2023

The Super Mario Brothers Movie I WANTED To See

Catch more from Screen Junkies on YouTube

Sure I could have used the ACTUAL trailer, but where’s the fun in that? Anyway, I’ve got OverClocked Remix’s Mario playlist going on in the background, so let’s talk Mario Brothers. Did you hear the movie is out? The good one that actually takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom instead of some urban sci-fi city where dinos and mushrooms all evolved into humans for reasons? I’m a creationist and even I know that’s not how that works. Super Mario Brothers the live-action movie was a flop and rightly so, and fans of the plumber siblings have been wanting a proper adaptation ever since that trainwreck smashed into theaters.

It seems we finally have it in the form of The Super Mario Brothers Movie. I hear it’s really good, and that was after concerns in the animation community who weren’t fans of Illumination’s work declaring it would be terrible. Sure, look at the competition between the live-action movie and that rather odd anime that was found a few years ago, but the TV shows are still liked by fans. So Illumination apparently learned from those shows. Peach may not be the damsel in distress but she still needs help and struggles like any good hero, is only good because she’s had more practice, and if you’re honest with yourself we’ve seen her join the action on and off ever since Super Mario Bros. 2 so it’s not completely ridiculous that Princess Peach Toadstool could join in the day saving. No, this isn’t the dealbreaker for me when it comes to Illumination’s film.

It’s also not the references that even look blatant in the trailers. Did we really need a scene in Super Mario Kart? Bringing in the antagonist from Wrecking Crew was cool and maybe they even grabbed Stanley The Bug Man from Donkey Kong 3 (see if he’s in the background having a salad or something) but for someone who hasn’t seen it this just feels like “hey, look at the obscure stuff we know” references rather than anything that matters to the plot. That’s usually a bad sign but thankfully they seem to have made it work. I do like the Super Mario Brothers Super Show theme for the Mario Brothers Plumbing commercial. They even made the website for their business, which is always a fun touch–and may or may not be active depending on when you read this.

It’s nearly everything a fan of the games and extended media could want…unless you’re me because I’m a picky schmuck at times and this is one of those times. The same thing happened with Scooby-Doo: Mask Of The Blue Falcon. It’s intended to be a tribute to the original work but doesn’t give me what I wanted from the original work. I know enough about this movie’s plot to know that this wasn’t the movie I wanted to see. So what did I want from a Super Mario Brothers movie? More brothers.

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Posted by on June 8, 2023 in Animation Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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