NOTE: Swearing takes place. It’s James Rolfe. You shouldn’t be surprised by now.
Catch more Cinemassacre movie discussions on their YouTube channel.
I decided to wait a week on Power Rangers Dino Fury because we haven’t seen how the monster of the week part is going to come out. I’m not sure when the next two Rangers are supposed to be introduced. It could be the next episode or it could wait a while, like Ninja Storm did. So stay tuned for that.
However, it does give me a chance to talk about the heroes that inspired it. Ever since the internet gave us the ability to see what the shows that were turned into various Power Ranger series were like the “sentai” and other works of tokusatsu have gained a similar fan following to early anime. For those you who missed my primer years ago, and I’ve learned a few things since then, tokusatsu usually refers to any Japanese show that uses a lot of special effects. It can be, as I’m learning, as varied as Iron Man, Pacific Rim, and Bewitched, and I’m not even joking. It just needs to use special effects, but for the obvious reasons we focus on the superheroes and giant monsters like Ultraman, Power Rangers, and Godzilla. Whatever the case the fan following here in the United States and other parts of the world are gaining speed.
I can only speak for the US as this is the country I live in, so many of these options may not work for you, but there are places to LEGALLY stream these kinds of shows. I’ve brought them up individually in the past but tonight I’ll give you all the ones I currently know of. If you like some of the shows that have been popping up on Saturday Night Showcase these past few weeks or are already aware of the various franchises here’s where you can see Japanese live-action superheroes for yourself without the guilt of fansubs.
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Spidey chose the wrong heroes to play tag with.
Spider-Man Family: Amazing Friends
Marvel Comics (October, 2006)
Like the previous Spider-Man Family comic this features some original stories and reprints. I will again do the reprinted stories as separate reviews, except for the Petey story. (That’s the one where Peter is a kid before he became Spider-Man.) That’s also a reprint but too short for it’s own review since it was a back-up story.
COVER ART: Patrick Olliffe, Livesay, & Lee Loughridge
PRODUCTION: Brad Johansen
“Opposites Attack!”
(takes place before Web Of Spider-Man #75)
WRITER: Sean McKeever
PENCILERS: Patrick Olliffe, Casey Jones, Kano, and Nick Dragotta
INKERS: Livesay, Vince Russell, Kano, Alvaro Lopez, and Nick Dragotta
COLORIST: Lee Loughridge
LETTERER: Melanie Olsen
The Mini-Marvels: “Spidey & His Amazing Co-Workers”
WRITER: Sean McKeever
ARTIST: Chris Giarrusso
CONSULTING EDITOR: Mark Paniccia
EDITOR: Nathan Cosby
Petey: “Hydra & Go-Seek”
WRITER/ARTIST: Fred Hembeck
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
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If you think this means the duo are calling it quits, that’s what their publcist says. While no reason was officially given I wonder if the video is giving us the answer. I could never tell you which one was Thomas Bangalter and which was Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (I’m admittedly not one of the die-hard fans but I’m a bit above casual), but I wonder if the one that blew up just got tired of the gig or even just the “one day we mysteriously transformed into robots” gimmick and wanted to move on to something new. I guess we’ll never find out what the reason was for their mecha-transformation. Now that I think of it the Gorillaz had a deeper back story, but I’d rather listen to Daft Punk any time.
I don’t know what their future holds but I hope it’s something amazing. Thanks for the awesome music, guys!
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Chapter By Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
When I did my review of The Black Stallion’s Ghost I came across parts of the book where the chapters were too short for a proper review in this format. So I decided on a minimum of 11 pages for a proper review. This served me well for Tom Clancy’s Op-Center when there were only maybe two chapters of decent length in the whole book. Ever since Joanna got to planet Dogg (only a few parsecs away from planet Catt but surprisingly far from planet Canaryy) the book has opted to use really short chapters. The last few installments, including last week’s, had three chapters. This week we’re going with only two. Let’s see if there’s enough to talk about.
Joanna continues her investigation, while we wonder if her ally is actually her enemy. Or maybe the other guy is her enemy. Or maybe they both are since we don’t know for sure there’s only one. Let’s dive in and find out where Joanna stands.
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It should be noted that this is based on the original Cartoon Network Teen Titans cartoon, using the “Go” from the show’s intro to set it apart from the regular DC Universe Teen Titans comic.
“Ummmm….we were fighting Mirror Master.”
Teen Titans Go! #1 (Free Comic Book Day edition)
DC Comics (September, 2004)
“Demo”
WRITER: J. Torres
PENCILER: Todd Nauck
INKER: Lary Stucker
COLORIST: Brad Anderson
LETTERER: Jared K. Fletcher
EDITORS: Lysa Hawkins & Tom Palmer Jr.
BW’s Daily Article Link: The Right Way To Write Politics
Nowadays writers seem to want to focus on politics rather than storytelling, and it doesn’t matter which side is doing it. It’s wrong either way and will just cause people to lose interest even when they agree with you. However, if you really need or want to do it, author James Harrington offers a suggestion on how to do it right.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on February 22, 2021 in Book Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged commentary, political commentary, writing tips.
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