Alright this is a few days late BUT this deserves to be told. It was announced on twitter a couple days ago that the next big Bat family story line after the amazing Court of Owls cross over is going to center around the freaking JOKER. The last time we saw the Joker in the new 52 was the first storyline in Detective comics. With his face cut off. Willingly. He has since disappeared and not a peep has been heard from him. Scott Snyder, the mastermind behind court of owls and writer of Batman, announced that the Joker has been planing this entire time and his palns will shake the bat family to its core and there WILL be bodies. Lots of them.
I was super excited by this announcement because Snyder doing the Joker will be unimaginably good. His Court of Owls is just wrapping up and it has been amazingly paced with great action and lots of shocking reveals. I am also excited to see Gail Simone tackle how Batgirl will react confronting Joker for the first time since she has been able to walk again. The trade of the first part of the court story has just been released so check it out before October when the Joker returns!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thank you, Mary Sue
Laura Croft: Bad @$$ or victim?
When I saw this cover of Game Informer I got excited. That was the most bad @$$ I had seen Laura Croft ever. I got even more excited when I read the article. It said that the new game would be a reboot and origin story for Laura. She’d be a young woman right out of college looking to make her own name, when things go horribly wrong and her boat crashes on a savage island. I got super excited when the article said she WILL be hurt and she WILL get dirty. Finally a Tomb Raider Game where Laura was realistic. She was designed like a normal slightly fit woman and her actions of running around in dark damp ancient tombs would show. I loved the premise and the new direction needless to say.
But then at E3 this trailer premiered. It shows the young Miss Croft fighting beast and landscape for her very life but it also showed something else. A scavenger on the island possibly trying to rape her. The brief scene starts at about 2:18. Now spoilers nothing seems to happen she starts fighting back immediately and eventually shoots her attacker square between the eyes. I would have thought nothing of it personally had it not been for the huge backlash fueled in part by one of the producers of the game saying in an interview that “players will want to protect her in a much different way than they would a male character”......Really?
OK so to tackle this very divisive issue let's first cover this statement that is dripping with stupidity. It implies pretty heavily that for most of the target audience they don’t want to project themselves in Laura but to act like her parent. That’s kinda creepy idea considering most players are probably going to be pretty close to Laura’s age who is in her early 20’s for this game. But I am unwilling to judge the game on this dummies comments because he is one very small part of a huge team for a blockbuster game. This is the way he views the game and he is neither a writer nor designer of the game. While his comment was stupid it in the end doesn’t matter in terms of the quality of the game.
Alright so now lets get into the real meat of the controversy, the clip itself. The game has many special interactive scenes to where if you fail Laura dies, usually in quite a gruesome way. This attempted rape scene seems to be just that type of scene to where the successful ending is Laura shooting the douche in the face. The unsuccessful result, well we don’t know what it is yet. It does seem to be that if the player fails to press the right button poor Laura gets raped and murdered. That is a very horrible thing to put into any game much less with a woman protagonist. Rape is the ultimate form of power assertion and humiliation. It has nothing to do with sex. If the unsuccessful result is that it should be removed which it seems to be. With the release date next March and how big of a backlash this 4 second clip of a 3 minute trailer seems to have made, the developers are scrambling to either change the context of the scene or take it out all together according to be a clarifying statement saying that “there is no rape in this game”. So it seems they realized their mistake and are taking it out. Awesome. I’m not going to go into the fact they thought it was OK to put it in there in the first place, that’s another article for another day.
I am going to give my thoughts (last ones for now I swear) on the other complaints of the game that the entire thing is torture porn. I disagree highly with this. Yes Laura is constantly being victimized by man, beast, savage, even her very surroundings. But you know what we also see her doing? Getting up each and every time. She is fighting for her very life with next to no tools, no experience, and no one coming to save her. If she wants to live she has to keep getting up and going forward. What I see in that magazine cover isn’t a victim but a determined woman who will let nothing stop her from getting off that island. Remember this is her origin story. She hasn’t been trained to fight for years prior to the events of the game, she’s probably never picked up a gun, never had to hunt and cook her own food or make her own shelter, never had to fight so hard to just stay alive. That makes her an even more bad ass feminist character for the 21st century, one that won’t let adversity keep her down, in my humble opinion.
note: I was highly inspired by this article which may put these ideas into better words. Check it out
But then at E3 this trailer premiered. It shows the young Miss Croft fighting beast and landscape for her very life but it also showed something else. A scavenger on the island possibly trying to rape her. The brief scene starts at about 2:18. Now spoilers nothing seems to happen she starts fighting back immediately and eventually shoots her attacker square between the eyes. I would have thought nothing of it personally had it not been for the huge backlash fueled in part by one of the producers of the game saying in an interview that “players will want to protect her in a much different way than they would a male character”......Really?
OK so to tackle this very divisive issue let's first cover this statement that is dripping with stupidity. It implies pretty heavily that for most of the target audience they don’t want to project themselves in Laura but to act like her parent. That’s kinda creepy idea considering most players are probably going to be pretty close to Laura’s age who is in her early 20’s for this game. But I am unwilling to judge the game on this dummies comments because he is one very small part of a huge team for a blockbuster game. This is the way he views the game and he is neither a writer nor designer of the game. While his comment was stupid it in the end doesn’t matter in terms of the quality of the game.
Alright so now lets get into the real meat of the controversy, the clip itself. The game has many special interactive scenes to where if you fail Laura dies, usually in quite a gruesome way. This attempted rape scene seems to be just that type of scene to where the successful ending is Laura shooting the douche in the face. The unsuccessful result, well we don’t know what it is yet. It does seem to be that if the player fails to press the right button poor Laura gets raped and murdered. That is a very horrible thing to put into any game much less with a woman protagonist. Rape is the ultimate form of power assertion and humiliation. It has nothing to do with sex. If the unsuccessful result is that it should be removed which it seems to be. With the release date next March and how big of a backlash this 4 second clip of a 3 minute trailer seems to have made, the developers are scrambling to either change the context of the scene or take it out all together according to be a clarifying statement saying that “there is no rape in this game”. So it seems they realized their mistake and are taking it out. Awesome. I’m not going to go into the fact they thought it was OK to put it in there in the first place, that’s another article for another day.
I am going to give my thoughts (last ones for now I swear) on the other complaints of the game that the entire thing is torture porn. I disagree highly with this. Yes Laura is constantly being victimized by man, beast, savage, even her very surroundings. But you know what we also see her doing? Getting up each and every time. She is fighting for her very life with next to no tools, no experience, and no one coming to save her. If she wants to live she has to keep getting up and going forward. What I see in that magazine cover isn’t a victim but a determined woman who will let nothing stop her from getting off that island. Remember this is her origin story. She hasn’t been trained to fight for years prior to the events of the game, she’s probably never picked up a gun, never had to hunt and cook her own food or make her own shelter, never had to fight so hard to just stay alive. That makes her an even more bad ass feminist character for the 21st century, one that won’t let adversity keep her down, in my humble opinion.
note: I was highly inspired by this article which may put these ideas into better words. Check it out
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Thoughts on....Justice League Doom
Holy crap. If I were to have to have a final project released after my sudden death, I'd want it to be this. Dwayne Mcduffie, the penman behind this wonderful piece, died just over one year ago after writing the script. I only recently found out about Mcduffies other accomplishments, like his Justice League animated series work as well as being the creator of Static Shock, another show I loved as a kid. Mr Mcduffie did not disappoint with his last piece of art and I know personally I am saddened by the loss of such a creative mind.
JL Doom was based off the JLA story The Tower of Babel where Batman's contingency plans for taking down each JLA member are stolen and used against the members of the Justice League. This movie is near perfect in pacing. It gives time to each character for the audience to get to know them and their personalities as well as the team dynamic. The opening scene is of a robbery by the Royal Flush gang and its an extremely fun action packed romp. The tech the gang uses for their robberies is a multidimensional projector that allows them to walk through walls. Its far beyond their capabilities of creating so they call in the leading expert, Cyborg, everyone's favorite walking computer. I loved his entrance into the movie, clothes-lining one of the gang members....like a boss! It shows the difference between him and the other heroes. He's young and sure of himself and his portrayal I feel is right out of the Teen Titans show, fun loving but kick ass. I am glad to see DC using Cyborg because because a lot of college age students know him from the show. To a lot of 20-somethings he's almost as well known as Batman or Superman, making him a great tool to draw in interest for that age group who may have fallen out of DC media. On a side note what I loved about the casting was that each of the voice actors from the 90s Justice League cartoon returned to do an amazing job once again. Don't fix what isn't broken is all I can say.
Well with the characters covered lets move on to the action. One of the reasons I think that animation should be utilized more is because it is limitless as the human imagination. You can do any camera angle, any character design, any special effect you want and in the right animators hands it will look fantastic and real. This is what happened in JL Doom. The fight scenes were well animated and well choreographed. When Superman throws a punch you can feel the power behind it, when Flash runs the speed is incredible, Green Lanterns ring constructs have a great flowing feel to them. You can tell a lot of work was put into the animation.
Now there are a few problems with the movie. For one thing I don't think that the reprecutions of Batmans scheming are fully explored. He claims that his plans were altered from non-lethal but I can't see how. The Martian Manhunter's trap was a poison to make him secrete a flammable chemical. How could that be none lethal? The entire idea is to set him on FIRE. Martian or not fire tends to make people dead. While the plot hole of not being able to see Batman's original plans is annoying, everything else from the dialogue, voice acting, and action sequences outshines that plot hole and makes for a gosh darn enjoyable movie. 8.5/10
JL Doom was based off the JLA story The Tower of Babel where Batman's contingency plans for taking down each JLA member are stolen and used against the members of the Justice League. This movie is near perfect in pacing. It gives time to each character for the audience to get to know them and their personalities as well as the team dynamic. The opening scene is of a robbery by the Royal Flush gang and its an extremely fun action packed romp. The tech the gang uses for their robberies is a multidimensional projector that allows them to walk through walls. Its far beyond their capabilities of creating so they call in the leading expert, Cyborg, everyone's favorite walking computer. I loved his entrance into the movie, clothes-lining one of the gang members....like a boss! It shows the difference between him and the other heroes. He's young and sure of himself and his portrayal I feel is right out of the Teen Titans show, fun loving but kick ass. I am glad to see DC using Cyborg because because a lot of college age students know him from the show. To a lot of 20-somethings he's almost as well known as Batman or Superman, making him a great tool to draw in interest for that age group who may have fallen out of DC media. On a side note what I loved about the casting was that each of the voice actors from the 90s Justice League cartoon returned to do an amazing job once again. Don't fix what isn't broken is all I can say.
Well with the characters covered lets move on to the action. One of the reasons I think that animation should be utilized more is because it is limitless as the human imagination. You can do any camera angle, any character design, any special effect you want and in the right animators hands it will look fantastic and real. This is what happened in JL Doom. The fight scenes were well animated and well choreographed. When Superman throws a punch you can feel the power behind it, when Flash runs the speed is incredible, Green Lanterns ring constructs have a great flowing feel to them. You can tell a lot of work was put into the animation.
Now there are a few problems with the movie. For one thing I don't think that the reprecutions of Batmans scheming are fully explored. He claims that his plans were altered from non-lethal but I can't see how. The Martian Manhunter's trap was a poison to make him secrete a flammable chemical. How could that be none lethal? The entire idea is to set him on FIRE. Martian or not fire tends to make people dead. While the plot hole of not being able to see Batman's original plans is annoying, everything else from the dialogue, voice acting, and action sequences outshines that plot hole and makes for a gosh darn enjoyable movie. 8.5/10
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Ol' Switcheroo
Those that know me know that when I started reading comics, I read exclusively Marvel. I loved the stories, characters and powers. Marvel's world felt like a possibility, unlike DC, which had to threaten the entirety of creation to create tension (unless your Batman & company). I kept on for a few years starting right after Civil War was wrapping up. Then things went nuts. Marvel became cross over crazy and to get even a fraction of what was happening with the characters you had to get at least 3 books with that character in it. My interest dropped heavily in many books and only stuck with a few like Ultimate Spider-man, She-Hulk and Spider-Girl. That is until the later two books were canceled. I was pissed! But I kept on until the price hike came in the fall of last year. I dropped more books again but was ecstatic to find out that X-23 (female clone of my favorite Canadian, Wolverine) was not only getting a new ongoing series but her book was one of the few that were staying at $2.99. Now since Marvel only had a few books on my pull list I started to pick up Wonder Woman with her revamp at issue 600. I liked it and so put it on my pull list permanently.
Now with this new DC reboot I've been thinking (a dangerous thing I know). I love me some super-heroes of any gender, but being a young female comic reader I do prefer to read a great heroine over a gruff hero. Marvel has a much better track record with a wide verity of female characters. Storm, Rouge, Kitty Pride (even if she can't stick to a super name), Invisible Woman, Black Widow, She-Hulk just to name a few heroes, not to mention other non-powered supporting characters like Mary Jane Watson. The thing is, Marvel has only 3 ongoing series with woman as the titular character and one, Generation Hope, I am not entirely sure if its angle is Hope or Hope and a bunch of other characters. DC with its new 52 has 7 titles with women stars (8 if you include Birds of Prey)! So it seems not only in accessibility but in interest level (for me at least) and over all quality DC has, sadly, gotten better. The only reason that Marvel has as many women characters is because of team books and mainly because of X-men and its many incarnations. Yes DC may have retconned marriages but did they have their heroes make a deal with the devil to do it? They may have only one woman, Gail Simone, under contract, but do their star women mainly appear in team books?
I have to wonder if these differences stem from the two companies current goals. In the 70's and 80's DC had much more media coming out of it with TV and blockbuster movies all really successful for their markets. Comic wise they had the multiverse with tons and tons of story lines steaming from each one. This made the comics relatively unfriendly to new readers. Marvel had a great amount of trouble at this time getting quality media out with horrible schlock like the Captain America movies and the live action Spider-Man TV show. Their comics however were self contained, versatile, and very human with the problems and issues brought up in them. That role has now seemed to be reversed. Marvel has been releasing great movies based off their characters since 1999's X-Men (unless you count Blade from 98) Marvel, with its comics being burdened by so many crossover event comics and new material (characters, back story etc), is almost impossible to keep up with them.
Take the Hulk family of characters. A few years ago Hulk had a son with a super powered alien. Great story idea right? Well, that is dropped for awhile with the son on the distant planet of his birth, Hulk has no idea that he is alive, believing he died along with his mother. Then we get introduced to the Red Hulk who we find out is General Ross. Then Red She-Hulk pops up who turns out to be Betty Ross, Bruce Banners supposedly dead wife and daughter of General Ross. It is also revealed that a female super hero from a future were there is a literal gender war stole Banners DNA and used it to impregnate herself. That daughter then comes to the present and then Bruce's/Hulk's son shows up on earth and their is a huge Hulk vs Hulk vs Hulk vs Hulk fight. This is all great stuff but it is so freaking compacted being revealed over the last 4 years. Marvel cannot seem to take its time to let new stuff sink in and be explored then release new ideas or characters. This is a key problem because it makes it hard for Marvel fans to keep up with multiple characters, all their money goes into all the appearances of the new and old characters from one section of their company.
Now DC has shown recently that they know how to make their comics accessible. Not only do they not have huge cross over events every year they have a variety of stars in their solo books. Granted it's a little white washed but I believe they are making strides in that area. Now they have this relaunch which has been marketed very well to get new readers. DC has shown they know how to get people in and with their self contained stories seem to know how to keep them. Heck, even with this relaunch DC has implied that all the stories from the last 25 years still happened exactly as they remembered them, just in a different time line, pacifying the long time readers while allowing to hook new readers.
Why has this switch in quality happened? Well it could be in the overall concentration areas of the companies. Marvel is making tons of money off of the Marvel Studio movies, much more than the comics. Now, yes, I know that they are entirely different sections of the company with different heads who have different goals and managing styles but even they have bosses. I think that the boss of the bosses is concentrating quality control on the movies since they are THE cash cow right now. Since comic sales are still dropping from the comic boom of the 90's they don't see any reason to try and expand readership or make sure to keep the comic readers they already have.
DC, on the other hand, seems to be having some trouble making any profitable movie outside of Batman and recognizes that comics can still be profitable. What opened my mind to DC comic books was Blackest Night from Green Lantern (the comics, that movie DIDN'T happen!). It was freaking amazing. It had great art, ideas, characters. Now granted this was defiantly the huge crossover, multi-title, end of all things story that I complained about earlier in this post, but somehow it did not feel like you were missing out if you didn't read one small section of the story. It kept what was needed in the main area and the other parts were just icing on the cake. Also it showed me that the type of stories DC has to do to challenge their heroes can be interesting. The heroes didn't feel over powered like I thought they would. Coupled with this story and the new 52 and what it promises to bring it seems that Marvel is on the back shelf, at least for me. I'll still pick up the books I'm reading now which are really good (and self-contained for the moment) but the bulk of my pulls will definitely come from DC. Sorry Marvel, I love you, I'll keep going to see your movies, but my respect for your comics has gone down the tubes.
I have to wonder if these differences stem from the two companies current goals. In the 70's and 80's DC had much more media coming out of it with TV and blockbuster movies all really successful for their markets. Comic wise they had the multiverse with tons and tons of story lines steaming from each one. This made the comics relatively unfriendly to new readers. Marvel had a great amount of trouble at this time getting quality media out with horrible schlock like the Captain America movies and the live action Spider-Man TV show. Their comics however were self contained, versatile, and very human with the problems and issues brought up in them. That role has now seemed to be reversed. Marvel has been releasing great movies based off their characters since 1999's X-Men (unless you count Blade from 98) Marvel, with its comics being burdened by so many crossover event comics and new material (characters, back story etc), is almost impossible to keep up with them.
Take the Hulk family of characters. A few years ago Hulk had a son with a super powered alien. Great story idea right? Well, that is dropped for awhile with the son on the distant planet of his birth, Hulk has no idea that he is alive, believing he died along with his mother. Then we get introduced to the Red Hulk who we find out is General Ross. Then Red She-Hulk pops up who turns out to be Betty Ross, Bruce Banners supposedly dead wife and daughter of General Ross. It is also revealed that a female super hero from a future were there is a literal gender war stole Banners DNA and used it to impregnate herself. That daughter then comes to the present and then Bruce's/Hulk's son shows up on earth and their is a huge Hulk vs Hulk vs Hulk vs Hulk fight. This is all great stuff but it is so freaking compacted being revealed over the last 4 years. Marvel cannot seem to take its time to let new stuff sink in and be explored then release new ideas or characters. This is a key problem because it makes it hard for Marvel fans to keep up with multiple characters, all their money goes into all the appearances of the new and old characters from one section of their company.
Now DC has shown recently that they know how to make their comics accessible. Not only do they not have huge cross over events every year they have a variety of stars in their solo books. Granted it's a little white washed but I believe they are making strides in that area. Now they have this relaunch which has been marketed very well to get new readers. DC has shown they know how to get people in and with their self contained stories seem to know how to keep them. Heck, even with this relaunch DC has implied that all the stories from the last 25 years still happened exactly as they remembered them, just in a different time line, pacifying the long time readers while allowing to hook new readers.
Why has this switch in quality happened? Well it could be in the overall concentration areas of the companies. Marvel is making tons of money off of the Marvel Studio movies, much more than the comics. Now, yes, I know that they are entirely different sections of the company with different heads who have different goals and managing styles but even they have bosses. I think that the boss of the bosses is concentrating quality control on the movies since they are THE cash cow right now. Since comic sales are still dropping from the comic boom of the 90's they don't see any reason to try and expand readership or make sure to keep the comic readers they already have.
DC, on the other hand, seems to be having some trouble making any profitable movie outside of Batman and recognizes that comics can still be profitable. What opened my mind to DC comic books was Blackest Night from Green Lantern (the comics, that movie DIDN'T happen!). It was freaking amazing. It had great art, ideas, characters. Now granted this was defiantly the huge crossover, multi-title, end of all things story that I complained about earlier in this post, but somehow it did not feel like you were missing out if you didn't read one small section of the story. It kept what was needed in the main area and the other parts were just icing on the cake. Also it showed me that the type of stories DC has to do to challenge their heroes can be interesting. The heroes didn't feel over powered like I thought they would. Coupled with this story and the new 52 and what it promises to bring it seems that Marvel is on the back shelf, at least for me. I'll still pick up the books I'm reading now which are really good (and self-contained for the moment) but the bulk of my pulls will definitely come from DC. Sorry Marvel, I love you, I'll keep going to see your movies, but my respect for your comics has gone down the tubes.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Firsts
Wellp first week back at old Radford University is almost done. Another interesting first is the new DC universe with all their number ones. Now over the summer, thanks to the Color War that went on in Green Lantern, I have seemed to become much much more of a DC fan (don’t tell Stan “the man” Lee or he’ll sick the Marry Marching Marvel Society on me). I don’t fully know how it happened but it did. My peaked interest came at a great time since DC is doing one of the biggest universe relaunches ever. 52 number ones in one month? That’s just nuts! So I’ll be picking up the titles that peak my interest like Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, All Star Western, Justice League (I'll probably pick others up well just have to wait and see). I hope to bring an outsiders perspective on the new DC universe since I didn't keep up with the old one.
I gotta say I hope they keep to the idea of streamlined books open to entirely new readers because even being the Marvel Zombie that I was until recently, I’ve gotton out of Marvel a little bit because of their status quo changing each year with a new event. People may complain when DC shakes things up but at least they do it every decade (if even that short of time span) and not every 5 GD minutes. Anyway I’m starting to ramble. I'll either do short pic video reviews of the books or text reviews, it may be a mixture of both we’ll all have to wait and see. Until then stay nerdy world!
I gotta say I hope they keep to the idea of streamlined books open to entirely new readers because even being the Marvel Zombie that I was until recently, I’ve gotton out of Marvel a little bit because of their status quo changing each year with a new event. People may complain when DC shakes things up but at least they do it every decade (if even that short of time span) and not every 5 GD minutes. Anyway I’m starting to ramble. I'll either do short pic video reviews of the books or text reviews, it may be a mixture of both we’ll all have to wait and see. Until then stay nerdy world!
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Captain America Vlog
This is taking place of the Green Lantern review. Once the dvd comes out i will review, until then enjoy the first Nerk video! (also forgive the pauses, I didn't edit it and wanted to get it up. My first vlog so hope you give me some leeway!)
(P.S. ugg I wish I had sat up more. Still getting used to set up. Will be better shot next time)
(P.S. ugg I wish I had sat up more. Still getting used to set up. Will be better shot next time)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)