Static Thoughts - Batman Mask of the Phantasm

There’s been a lot of superhero media these days focused on the well-worn trope of the murderous vigilante.  Batman: Arkham Knight’s titular antagonist is essentially a militarized version of Batman who’s willing to kill his foes and it was just recently announced that Punisher will be the main villain of Netflix’s Daredevil season 2.  With all that in mind now seems like the perfect time to revisit Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the hands down best iteration of this particular storyline as well as probably the best Batman film all around.  For those of you unfortunate enough to be unaware of this film, Mask of the Phantasm was a 1993 animated feature that spun out of Bruce Timm’s award winning Batman the animated series (which is why this is a Static Thoughts article.)  The film deals with a mysterious new vigilante named the Phantasm who’s been killing off Gotham mobsters and letting Batman take the blame.  That’s the outward plot anyway; the deeper focus of the film is on the very definition of Batman and how he relates to personal loss, revenge, and justice.  

Static Thoughts - Game of Thrones S5

A little over two weeks ago HBO’s Game of Thrones concluded its 5^th season.  It was a very divisive season with an even more divisive conclusion; with a lot of folks I’ve talked to finding the season’s ending unsatisfying and alienating.  Personally I found the entire season to be rife with problems though they weren’t necessarily unique to this season of Game of Thrones.  More this season is just the time when the show’s many issues finally boiled over onto the surface, and I say that as a pretty dedicated fan.  However, even though I know exactly what it is I found so problematic and distasteful about this season of HBO’s hit fantasy show I can’t help but feel a strange sense of reservation in my dislike and wondering if the problem really is Game of Thrones or if it’s more on my end as a viewer. 

Movie Monthly - King Kong (2005)

Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a film that’s always sort of haunted me.  In case you don’t remember this movie was huge when it came out, dominating a lot of the film conversation that year as well as landing #5 at the year-end box office round up.  It was Jackson’s first post-Lord of the Rings effort and clearly cost unfathomable amounts of money to produce with a lot of CGI work that was top notch, cutting edge for the time.  And despite all these factors, any impact it might’ve had was wiped away within just a couple of years.  Nowadays people don’t even bring up King Kong ’05 as an example of talent gone awry like that same year’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or as an example of major film with no impact like we regard Avatar.  What is it about this movie that makes it so completely forgotten by popular culture?  Let’s find out. 

Panel Vision - Punisher, Revenge Fantasy, & Visceral Violence

Punisher #19 is intended as a revenge fantasy comic.  The plot, such as it is, is that psychotic killing machine Frank Castle is contacted by an elite special ops group known as the Howling Commandos.  The commandos are asking for Punisher’s help to take out a terrorist cell in the Middle East.  From there the comic is just a slurry of sequences as the Punisher shoots, explodes, and tortures his way through various terrorist cannon fodder.  Additionally, nothing about this issue actually works.  There’s a plethora of reasons why the book falls apart but its simple existence has made me keen to discuss revenge fantasies in general along with the idea of highly fetishized vicarious violence, using Punisher #19 as a contrasting example of what not to do to craft these kind of stories in a cathartic and satisfying manner. 

The Black Hood #5 Review

Check out my latest review for All-Comic, Dark Circle's The Black Hood #5 concludes the first series arc, full review here:

http://all-comic.com/2015/black-hood-5/

All-Comic Reviews

So, big announcement time; my reviews will now be featured on All-Comic in addition to Front Towards Gamer.  What this means is that my Front Towards Gamer content will be short, punchy, under-500 word reviews while my work for All-Comic will be longer and more in depth pieces.  All of this works in addition to the various reviews and posts I'll be putting out here at Lido Shuffle.  My first review is already up for All-Comic, a look at Hellbreak #4 that can be found here http://all-comic.com/2015/hellbreak-4/

7 Big Franchises That Got Weird Albums

Hey I got a list published on the popular podcasting website Laser Time.  Check it out here http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/2015/06/23/7-big-franchises-that-got-weird-albums/

Static Thoughts - Star Trek: Voyager invented modern sitcom casting

Recently it was announced that Paramount has been considering bringing Star Trek back to TV, with a major focus on a proposed new show called Star Trek Uncharted.  I’m a huge Star Trek fan so I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to discuss my favorite iteration of the show and easily the most underrated: Star Trek Voyager.  If you don’t know Star Trek: Voyager was the 4^th iteration of the series, set within the same time period as Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.  The focus of the show was on the titular Voyager ship, a new class of starship tasked with taking out a deadly cell of a major terrorist group in the Star Trek universe called the Marquis.  Their operation goes sideways when both Voyager and the Marquis vessel they were hunting get pulled to the other side of the galaxy.  Now stranded as far from home as possible both Marquis and Federation crews have to work together if they’re to have any hope of getting back to Earth.  

Movie Monthly - Jurassic World

Welcome back to Movie Monthly where I spend an entire month spotlighting entries in a niche genre of films.  Normally I don’t like to focus on big, well-known films unless I feel they’ve been overlooked or forgotten but this is a special case.  The whole reason I decided to make this first month of Movie Monthly ‘Jurassic June’ was because Jurassic World premiered this month so it would feel a bit disingenuous not to cover it here.  With that said let’s dive right in. 

Panel Vision - Kaijumax

Kaijumax is a comic about a prison for giant monsters that draws heavy inspiration from the various films of Toho Studio’s Godzilla franchise.  The series itself is a great, a winning combination of clever visual gags an meaningful writing that knows how to get the most out of its characters and ideas.  Being a big fan of the Godzilla franchise I thought I’d talk about the various films that Kaijumax is drawing inspiration from, especially with this week’s issue.  In case you haven’t read my mini-review this latest issue puts the series focus on three quasi-new characters of the series.

 There’s Mecha-Zon, a robot monster built by humans to destroy Kaiju but who has turned against mankind and renounced violence, Whoofy, a the bumbling and comical son of Ape-Whale, one of the resident kings of the Kaijumax, and Jeong, son of Kaijumax’s Warden Kang and one of the facilities most powerful guards, able to transform into a monster-sized superhero.  Each of these characters has a key parallel from the Godzilla franchise and even though Kaijumax and I’m going to talk about them, starting with Mecha-Zon and his counterpart Mechagodzilla.  

Panel Vision - Southern Bastards

Southern Bastards is one of the best comics currently being published.  Initially the comic was about Earl Tubb, a tired old man returning to his childhood home to see the ugly twisted thing it had grown into.  However, as the narrative has unfolded over the past 8 issues the focused has moved away from formula plot and stock archetypes and settled into a focus on ideas and themes.  I’ve talked multiple times previously about the value of placing emphasis on mood and theme rather than the strict mechanics of character and plot and there is no better example of this than Southern Bastards.  

 

Panel Vision - Moon Knight #16

In case you aren’t familiar with him Moon Knight is a Marvel vigilante character created in the ‘70s to fight werewolves.  Since then he’s stayed around thanks to the popularity of his unique visual scheme while his actual character has ended up filtered through a variety of different lenses.  This latest incarnation of Moon Knight takes things somewhat back to the characters roots with an emphasis on supernatural fantasy, though it’s blended nicely with Moon Knight’s role as a gritty urban crime fighter.  The result is a comic that ends up thoroughly informed by ‘90s sensibilities but executed in an infinitely better manner. 

Panel Vision - Martian Manhutner

I am a huge fan of Martian Manhunter.  A lot of this has to do with how I first entered the world of advanced comic readership.  When I was younger my first entry point to comics that wasn’t in the form of animated TV was the extensive work of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis.  These two guys basically invented the tropes and ideas of modern comics, from character identities to universal events 90% of the stuff we like in modern comics can be traced by to Giffen and DeMatteis.  One of their first comics I ever read was a 1988 four-issue mini-series spotlighting the Martian Manhunter and his origins.  This series alone stands as a testament to how influential their work was as it’s still the defining mythos by which Martian Manhunter is written today. 

Since reading it I’ve always been keen to check out any appearances of the Manhunter from mars so when DC announced a new comic series I was intrigued.  So far DC’s post-New 52 titles have been a mixed bag but both Batman and Action Comics turned out very well, so I was optimistic going into Martian Manhunter.  The result doesn’t so much sore as it stumbles at the starting line but makes a decent effort in the process. 

Panel Vision - Astro City #24

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: apes on comics sell comics.  This week we take our first look at the strange comic staple that is Astro City.  Astro City is the product of the combined might of comic powerhouses Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Alex Ross.  The trio came up together in the mid-90s with Astro City as their breakthrough title before Busiek and Ross went on to produce the groundbreaking Marvels mini-series.  Astro-City is a weird comic in that it doesn’t really rely on a solid cast of characters to tell its stories.  Instead the emphasis is on the location, as the name implies, and using it as sort of a loose canon pastiche of superhero tropes.  The book mainly draws from the bronze age for inspiration but is essentially a free for all grab bag of ideas thrown together to tell stories with superheroes in a superhero universe where fighting crime and brawling aren’t necessarily the focus. 

Panel Vision - Jurassic Park Raptor Saga

With Jurassic World hitting theaters and setting the world abuzz with this latest installment to a franchise that’s never really shown long term viability I thought it’d be fun to look at the first ever attempted Jurassic Park sequel; the Jurassic Park: Raptors saga. 

Static Thoughts - Dino Riders

As it’s still June and I’m still celebrating all things dinosaur I thought it’d be fun to look at some dinosaur T.V. shows, specifically shows of the animated variety.  Here’s the thing though, the preponderance of animated dinosaur shows range from awful to mediocre.  There’s the well remembered but in actuality terrible Dinosaucers, rightfully forgotten mediocrity like Denver the Last Dinosaur or The Land Before Time animated series, and the decent if not terribly interesting installments like Extreme Dinosaurs.  There is however one animated dinosaur show that not only holds up it holds up incredibly well thanks to a huge amount of non-narrative subtext.  That show, as you may have guessed from the title, is Dino-Riders.

 

iZombie - Blaine's World Review

In case you aren't one of my normal readers over at Front Towards Gamer you don't know that I also review TV shows, specifically shows adapted from comics or that have been featured as comics I've reviewed.  My previous reviews include Gotham, The Flash, Doctor Who, The Strain, Constantine, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Powers, and Daredevil.  This week however I take a look at the season finale to iZombie, a series that started out bland and mediocre but clawed its way up to being a stand out creative endeavor with a ton of passion behind it.  See the full review here. 

Static Thoughts - Adventure Time

Hey welcome to Static Thoughts, the third of my media review shows because I'm a glutton for punishment.  More to the point Static Thoughts will be the banner I use to talk about TV, both current and completed.  Here on Static Thoughts you’ll find reviews, retrospectives, top 10s, recommendations, think pieces, and whatever else I see fit to write relating to television.  Now that we’ve finished the introductions let’s jump into our opening subject: Adventure Time. 

Movie Monthly: The Dinosaur Project

Hello and welcome back to Movie Monthly, it’s week two of Jurassic June and we’re looking at The Dinosaur Project.  The Dinosaur Project is a British found footage film that revolves around an expedition to find the African cryptid Mokele Mbembe.  The Mokele Mbembe is an actual legendary creature that’s rumored to prowl the river ways of the Congo.  Dinosaur Project’s obvious take on things is that the Mokele Mbembe is actually a dinosaur, part of a strange section of the Congo jungle that’s full of prehistoric monsters. 

Panel Vision: Groot #1 Review

The success of Groot as both a character and now as a national phenomenon is an astonishing tale.  I mean that literally by the way, Groot’s first appearance was in Tales to Astonish #13 as the monster from Planet X.  Most folks nowadays know him from his appearance in last summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy but in case you’re unaware here’s the skinny on the character.  Groot is a prince of Planet X who initially left his home in an attempt to protect from the villains then ongoing Marvel event series Annihilation.  During the battle he was destroyed, but because Groot is essentially an Ent he was able to re-grow himself from a single twig. 

Secret Wars Blurb-Views

Blurb-Views is a practice I started in mid-2014.  Basically it's something I do when there are so many comics I'd like to review in a given week but don't have enough to say about them individually to make full reviews.  If you're interested in them here are the links for my previous Blurb-View issues.  This week is a themed Blurb-view about Marvel's current maxi-event Secret Wars.  The review covers Secret Wars #3 by Jonathan Hickman, Secret Wars: Battleworld #2 by David Walker and Donny Cates, and Renew Your Vows by Dan Slott, his long awaited response to One More Day.  The review can be found here.