“Reed, you really need to tend this garden better.”
Iron Man volume 3 #35
DC Comics (December, 2000)
“Power” part 3: “The Land”
WRITERS: Joe Quesada (now also credited as Editor In Chief) & Frank Tieri
PENCILER: Alitha Martinez
INKER: Bob Hunter
COLORIST: Steve Oliff
LETTERING: Comicraft
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Brian Smith
EDITOR: Bobbie Chase
So the new Men In Black movie and X-Men: The Last Stand take 2 both failed at the box office. People who hate these franchises will blame it on franchise or genre fatigue. People who ARE fans of these franchises and genres will blame it on people who don’t care about the franchise making a crap movie or a good movie that’s a crap adaptation. Variety contributor Owen Gleiberman makes the case for the latter, pointing out that this alleged fatigue doesn’t explain the movies that actually do well.
Last week we got the exposition dump from the narrator explaining how the Mini-Cons escaped Cybertron and went to Earth, mostly following the anime’s version rather than the comics. Now it’s time to meet the focus characters of the story, the Earth kids who will serve to draw us into this Transformers continuity.
Human characters in Transformers, especially kids, are often a source of complaint for some fans. “Kids want to be the heroes, not the ones with the heroes.” No, that’s you. I never wanted to be a Transformer, as cool as the Autobots were, but being a human who gets to ride with (and in) Bumblebee? Sounds great to me. Humans also know more about Earth than the Transformers do, which is why continuities where they don’t try to work with humans to help them defend their own planet never sits well with me. Optimus Prime usually takes too long to work with humans. The original cartoon, Transformers Prime (where they secretly work with the military), and the two Rescue Bots shows are some of the rare exceptions when it comes to directly work with humans instead of a small handful unless a series goes on long enough. So let’s see how the Mini-Cons started working with Rad, Carlos, and Alexis in this continuity.
“No! This is MY candy bar!”
Batman Beyond #16
DC Comics (February, 2001)
“Snake Food”
WRITER: Hilary Bader
PENCILER: Craig Rousseau
INKER: Rob Leigh
COLORIST: Lee Loughridge
LETTERER: Tim Harkins
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Frank Berrios
EDITOR: Bob Schreck
And yet if it was for the Nintendo DS they wouldn’t care.
I’m not well versed in this game series but all the complaints I saw were just upset about this being a mobile game. It’s an old DOS game series that doesn’t involve space marines blowing up demons. Do you really think it’s going to have a widespread audience without changing everything about the game? Look, I’m the guy always complaining about not-stalgia and mockstalgia and even I gave She-Ra & The Princesses Of Power more of a chance than the gamers I follow are giving this new Commander Keen.
In this week’s Clutter Report I go over my manga. Am I done sorting comics now? Probably not.
Speaking of Japanese media, that Molebeat company got my Clash Of The Bionoids review again. Apparently they like to wait two days before flagging me. I “fixed” the section they were complaining about only to have them complain about another earlier section. I don’t understand how this is working. Why did Victor Entertainment not complain about the end music earlier? What is wrong with Japan’s content ID claims and their ignoring fair use laws in countries outside of theirs? Well, I’m done trying to edit this thing. I’m not spending the rest of my life on one video. They’re allowing it to stay up and they aren’t trying to monetize it like Victor did (and I can’t monetize it anyway because I’m not popular enough) so the heck with it. And despite other anime I wanted to discuss I’m not discussing Japanese media in video form anymore. I’ve had it with this country. I’m not uploading the full movie. That I would see them having a problem with and that’s why they’re on the rampage to begin with, because so much of their work is illegally online. Heck, I can find the full version of Do You Remember Love on YouTube. Why not flag that? This is just a review, with encouragement to see their stuff. I guess they don’t want free promotion either. Anyway, no more anime video reviews folks.
As for this week I had other things to discuss and didn’t get a Finally Watched in. Maybe this week. Meanwhile I did the layouts for Captain PSA so I’m hoping to have one of those for you. What’s actually going to come out I seem to never know anymore, making updates hard lately, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it.
If you’ve been here long enough you know that for the most part I really don’t care who would win in a fight between two heroes. I’d rather see heroes team-up against a villain, or have a hero fight a villain from another reality that is similar to them in power in ability. Ask me who would win between Superman and the Samaritan and I wouldn’t care, but ask me who would win between Superman and the Plutonian or Gladiator (who is only a “hero” depending on who is running the Shi’ar empire this month) and I’m a bit more interested. Tonight I chose an episode of Death Battle not for the fight itself but for the information it contains.
There have been numerous incarnations of Mega Man, from the former helper robot Rock to his brother X to humans who turn into Mega Man, across numerous games, cartoons, and comics. The current Mega Man (who was not around at the time this video was created) from Mega Man: Fully Charged, is back to being your typical power-copying hero and I’m not sure his presence would have changed the outcome of the fight. However, Wiz and Boomstick go over the various incarnations, choosing from the six most popular–the original and X, Volnut from Legends, .EXE from Mega Man Battle Network/NT Warrior (the latter is the anime/manga name, the former the Game Boy Games), and Star Force Mega Man. Who would win in a fight? I don’t care. I’m here for the character history and technical data.
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
