Check Out This Dutch Website RIGHT NOW

No, it's not porn. It's the website for a Dutch department store. Just let it load and don't touch anything. This isn't one of those "turn your volume up all the way" kind of thing from 2001, it's actually a very clever Rube Goldberg-like web design. Just click the link and enjoy!

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Tom Whalen's Art Is Awesome

Thanks to his Autumn Society update yesterday, I discovered a ton of awesome art by a guy named Tom Whalen who goes by the name *strongstuff on Deviant Art. He posted this latest Voltron poster and then links to his awesome Green Lantern Corps, Silverhawks and Iron Man Corps commissions. Check them out!






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This Is The Coolest Couch Ever

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I hate hyperbole. If you're saying something is the best or it's your favorite, then it should be that and every time you use those words, you diminish them. That's my grammar pet peeve of the day. That being said, this is absolutely the coolest couch ever. I saw a commercial for this thing called the Super Bob from Bob's Discount Furniture and just had to share it with the world.

Not only is it a full couch (or sofa as they call it on the website), which I appreciate considering I've been making due with a freakin' love seat for three years, but it sports dueling recliners and a fold-up middle console which offers up reading lights and a drink cooler! Also, it looks kind of like a Transformer, which I'm all for.

So here's what it looks like normally, kind of ugly, but it doesn't bother me.


Here's the recliners in action.


This is the top part of the middle section that flips back to offer up the lights.


And finally, here's the beverage holder.


There's also a loveseat with recliners and a center console.


And here's the center console.


You can pick up the loveseat for $699, the couch for $799 and both together for $1498. That seems like a helluva deal to me.

Anyone wanna buy me one?

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The Expendables Trailer Is Awesome

I was pretty bummed out last week when I heard that the trailer for The Expendables had been leaked and taken down in the matter of a night. I'm not sure if this is still a leaked version or if it's official (let's hope official), but it looks like this movie will be everything I hoped it would be.

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The Brutal Legends Commercial Is Awesome

Holy crap you guys, I am STOKED for Brutal Legend to come out next week. Now, I won't be able to buy it thanks to not having any spare cash, BUT that won't stop me from enjoying this rad commercial that EA put out. They've got a BL theme song and everything that sounds like it's straight out of the 80s. Good stuff.

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Tim Burton Is Awesome

Over the past two days I've had the pleasure of watching two Tim Burton movies on the train and realizing how much I like his directing. Monday I watched childhood favorite Beetlejuice (1988) and yesterday I checked out Mars Attacks (1996) for the first time. I also recently realized that Burton is probably the first director I was a fan of before I even realized what a director did. I remember watching Frankenweenie on the Disney Channel, I liked Batman, but Batman Returns was my favorite superhero movie for years and I have memories of Pee Wee's Big Adventure like anyone else my age, but wasn't too obsessed with it. In fact, Burton was probably the first director whose work I did recognize. And, perusing his credits on IMDb and realizing I've really enjoyed most of what I've seen, I've decided to give him the "... Is Awesome" tag, I'm sure he's super excited.

Before jumping into the movie reviews, I do want to note that I still haven't seen Edward Scissorhands or Sleepy Hollow, but I have seen all of his other big movies. I didn't really like Sweeney Todd (apparently, I have a fear of razors against throats, who knew?) and I'm not particularly partial to Nightmare Before Christmas (which he didn't direct, but produced) or Corpse Bride, but I think that's because I resented paying full New York prices for a 76 minute movie. Anyway, not liking three movies and not seeing two movies puts him in that rare category of directors with a lot of movies which I have seen and liked. It's easy to say I like Tarantino or Kevin Smith, but they don't have all that many movies.

So, now onto Beetlejuice and Mars Attacks specifically. When I say I was a Beetlejuice fan as a kid, I'm talking full-on. I had the movie on tape of course, watched the cartoon, got as many of the toys as I could (I'll take pictures of what I have and do a separate post soon) and even dressed up as him for Halloween one year (Mom made the suit and we bought the official Beetlejuice toy mask with pop-out snakes!). And, the craziest thing about all this is that I was a fan even though I saw something on TV about Beetlejuice that scared me so much I had nightmares.

I've been searching YouTube and the internet for any reference to this, but can't find it. Around the time the movie came out, I saw this talk show aimed at kids either on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel where they interviewed some of the ghosts and monsters from the movie. I think the shrunken head hunter was on there, but I definitely remember the file clerk who got run over by a truck. There were a few others but I can't remember them. I also don't remember the details, but it scared me so bad I had nightmares for a while. Also note that this was well before I even entertained the idea of watching horror movies. Just the previews scared me. Ah, how far I've come.

It's been probably 10 years since I watched Beetlejuice all the way through (I picked the DVD up on the cheap sometime in the past year, but hadn't watched it). I still really dig this movie. It's got a great mix of comedy, action and horror, plus great performances by everyone involved from Michael Keaton as the Ghost With the Most down to Jane, the annoying real estate woman.

The only part that doesn't hold up is the special effects, which, according to the internet, Burton did on purpose as a reference to older sci-fi and horror movies (hence the stop motion animation of the sculptures and sandworms). But, other effects still look great, and mostly because they're practical. I love the ghastly faces Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin, he looks so young and thin!) put on to scare Lydia (Winona Ryder, also super young).

A couple of funny things I realized while watching this movie before Mars Attacks. First off, this is the second movie in two weeks I've watched where rich New Yorkers move away from the city to a quiet place somewhere north of the city. At least in Beetlejuice, they eventually tell you they're in Connecticut so I wasn't driving around trying to find the school house. Also, I realized while watching that Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones will always be "the people from Beetlejuice" in my head. I remember when O'Hara lated played the mom in Home Alone, I was psyched. And, while Jones will always be Ed Rooney to most, he's the dad from this movie and the bad guy from Who's Harry Crumb and that's the way it is.

Which brings me to Mars Attacks, which doesn't have single character/actor who I haven't seen in something else. Hell, even Jack Black's in this bad boy and he looks only a little less svelte than he did in Airborne. Heck even the kid from Solarbabies is in it, but to me he's still the whiny kid from that movie (though he's way more awesome and less girly now).

I can't think of a recent movie that has brought together so many famous actors in one flick (check out the full roster here). Sure, you could argue that some people like Sarah Jessica Parker or Lisa Marie weren't really all that famous at the time, but you've got Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Natalie Portman (also probably not super famous at the time) and Pam Grier! For the record, that's also the Joker, Cruella de Vil, James Bond, Penguin, Amidala AND Foxy Brown. That's a pretty epic team-up. (Any artists out there want to draw that up? It'd be rad?) Anyway, what I liked most about this star studded cast is the fact that so many of these big time starts got killed in really great and kind of gruesome ways. You really don't see THAT nowadays.

I know I'm late to the game by 13 years on this one. I'm not sure why I didn't see it when it came out or why it took so long for me to finally see it, but I'm really glad I did. It was very slow going at first and I kept wondering how all these different characters were going to fit together and really just wanted to get to the aliens blowing shit up, but I see why it all works. It's a satire on movies like it, but also society. Parker's character could be taken out of this movie and put on the NYC streets I walk everyday to get to work (I might have seen her last week actually, she just has a Blackberry now). That Burton fella's ahead of the curve methinks. Plus, the effects are cool and it's damn funny.

And dammitall if those aren't the cutest little aliens blasting the crap out of humanity. I loved their "ack ack ACK" dialogue and loved it even more when their heads exploded. Watching the second half of the movie really made me want to play whatever the latest Destroy All Humans game is. It also made me want to check out the original card series that the movie is based on (huh, basing a movie on a card set seems just as crazy as basing one on a board game, no?), which brought me to Zelda's Mars Attacks site, check it out!

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Sylvester Stallone Is Awesome

I had a revelation while watching Over The Top (1987) this weekend: Sylvester Stallone really is a good actor. In addition to his obvious bad assery, I found myself feeling bad for the big galoot as he struggled with dealing with his son. It shouldn't really come as a surprise, I've seen a surprising amount of Stallone movies this pass year including Death Race 2000, First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Over The Top, Tango and Cash (how did I not blog about those three?), Cliffhanger and Rambo. I've also seen most of the Rocky movies in my days, but need to rewatch them, Cop Land and, as I've mentioned before, I can't wait for The Expendables. Two of those I've watched recently, so let's jump in, shall we?

A few weeks back I had some free time on the weekend (I came down with a crazy cold while we were trying to paint our bathroom, I swear) and decided to give Cliffhanger (1993) on Netflix Instant Watch. I got so into it that Em, who was graciously finishing the painting while I slowly turned into a snot machine, heard me yelling at the TV and was about to yell at me for playing video games while she was working until she came in to see me on the edge of my seat.

See, the thing is that THEY'RE ON THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN. Sure there's actors, stuntmen, matte painting and other special effects, but this is before cheap CGI, so someone was actually on a mountain and you can feel that danger. I don't know if it was unconscious or not because it popped into my head right away "Woah, that's high up, someone had to actually do that," but I definitely felt it the whole time. Just try and tell me this isn't intense:



I'd never seen the movie, so it held a lot of surprises for me, especially when it came to the cast. I pretty much only knew that Stallone and the girl from Northern Exposure (Janine Turner) were in it. I had no idea John Lithgow, Michael Rooker and the cop from CSI Miami (Rex Linn) were all in it. You gotta love Lithgow as a villain.

The thing that surprised me about both of these Stallone movies is how much deeper the story is than you'd expect. With Cliffhanger, you'd just expect it to be dudes on a mountain making other dudes find their lost money, but instead you've got all this backstory between Stallone and Rooker and Stallone and Turner. The same goes for Over The Top, which I picked up at Best Buy for $5 last week even though I'd never seen it before. It's not JUST the Stallone arm wrestling movie. He's also dealing with his 10-year-old kid who he's never met before (played by David Mendenhall, the voice of Daniel Witwicky in Transformers), the kid's sick mom, her dad (played by Lost Highway's Robert Loggia!) and a bunch of dudes in tank tops at the arm wrestling championship.

Of course, it comes with its fair share of ridiculousness too. Stallone's a truck driver and one of the prizes for the American arm wrestling championship just so happens to be a big rig. Exactly what he needs. Huh, go figure. There's also a whole series of scenes in which his son steels a car, drive it to the airport, gives it to a security guard, flies to Las Vegas, avoids his grandpa's goons (one of which, I'm pretty sure played a goon in Road House, the one with the curly hair) and makes his way to the arm wrestling championships all while his dad is in the middle of the competition. Crazy! How does he do this? Were credit cards even around back then? It's like they tried to throw a little Home Alone in the middle of this action movie, it's great. You've also got a great series of weirdos he has to arm wrestle (all of whom are much, MUCH bigger than him.

But, yeah, of course the best moments involve Stallone being a badass:

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If you can't get behind this kind of awesomeness, I pity you.

Two more quick things. One, the movie was so rad that it earned itself an action figure line back in 1986 with real arm wrestling action! I very much wish I could find a commercial online for this, but as the basic video search I did on YouTube brought nothing, click through to this Virtual Toy Chest link, you'll be doing yourself a service my friend.

And second, just try and tell me that this painted image of Stallone, arm extended with a truck and a hawk behind him isn't cooler than anything you've seen in the past 13 years. Bazinga!




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Wipeout Is Awesome!

Guys, if you're not watching ABC's Wipeout at 8:00PM on Wednesday's you're crazy. Or commies. Either way, you should stop being that and start watching this.

So, Wipeout is a lot like Most Extreme Challenge, but with Americans. You've got people going through increasingly difficult and ridiculous challenges for $50,000. Now, I guess that might sound like not a lot of money compared to some other gameshows, but, dudes, I'd do that for FREE. It's like the Eliminator from American Gladiators, but several times in one episode. It's awesome.

If you watched last year and couldn't get into it, give it another shot, because they've gotten a lot more creative with the challengers. In fact, last week's episode and the one that just ended had very little in common. It's amazing. Watch the clip then watch the show:





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Dapper Dan Is Awesome

I recently received a critique saying I used the word "awesome" too much. While that may be, I'm not gonna stop, especially when I come across an artists like Dapper Dan whose pop culture-inspired art blows me away so thoroughly.

Thanks to a post on /Film about his recent Back to the Future piece, I found my way to Dapper Dan's Deviant Art page and spent a good deal of the day going through it. I'm a big fan of artists who take the time to create pieces of art using their favorite characters from comics, TV, movies, video games and anything else (especially if they're all thrown together). Between his page and Gallery1988, I've got plenty to pour over.

But if you're too lazy to click over to the link, feel free to browse his images in the gallery below, though these are only a few of his albums and you're definitely missing out if you don't check everything out.

Here's his DC album.


And here's his Ghostbusters album.



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Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci Are Awesome!

Damn, these guys are awesome. For those of you who might not know, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are the screenwriters behind Transformers, it's upcoming sequel (which I'm very excited about), The Legend of Zorro, Mission Impossible III, Fringe, Star Trek and The Island, the last two I watched recently.

Right off the bat, I've got to admit that I don't really remember Legend of Zorro or MI3, so I can't speak to their ability writing those or for shows like Xena, Hercules, Jack Of All Trades and Alias, but everything else I've seen that they're written has been rad. As you might have noticed, Kurtzman and Orci have a history of working with producer, writer and director extraordinaire J.J. Abrams (Alias, Fringe and Trek). Not shabby company to keep if you ask me.

What I love about these guys is how thoroughly they think through genre stories that, a few years ago, would have probably been tossed to guys who were just looking to get a paycheck. Transformers didn't have to be a good movie (and many of you might disagree with me on this), but it was. It was also full of crazy fun action scenes. Aside from the incredible stories you see on the screen, I've heard a number of interviews with the writing duo thanks to the Creative Screenwriting Podcast. Most recently I listened to the Star Trek one and it blew me away at how well they were able to address and answer logically many of the geek and logic-based questions. A few holes in the movie were filled in the original writing stage, but were later cut and there's all kinds of other information they have to offer in these interviews. I highly recommend them.

Like I said, I watched The Island (2005) and Star Trek (2009) last week. I'm thinking of going back and listening to the Island podcast interview actually because I'm curious to hear what they have to say about their first original movie, which ended up getting directed by Michael Bay (who I've gone on record as loving). The Island is a very cool movie though it seems at first to have a ton of plot holes (how do they go from naive teenage-level beings to pulling off this crazy scheme?). But, the more I think about the various apparent holes, the more I can explain them. Ewan McGregor's character is growing memories right? So maybe he's growing a few character traits here and there. It's these kinds of questions I think would be addressed in the podcast, which I will, now that I think about it, definitely be downloading from iTunes tomorrow.

What I do know just from watching the movie without any background is that it was clearly influenced by some of the classic 70s sci-fi flicks I watched back in January. It was fun watching the movie, kind of knowing what the twist was, but not really knowing how completely it would flip. SPOILER: I knew they were clones, but I didn't know the details, like that they were living in a complex created by someone who saw Logan's Run a time or two too many. Even knowing what I knew, I still couldn't figure how it would be revealed, so that's a testament to the writing.

I definitely recommend The Island to anyone. It's got the assumed Michael Bay chases and explosions. Even a car chase with a truck dropping big scary things while being chased by a smaller vehicle (cars in Bad Boys II, train wheels here). Plus you get McGregor, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi who are always good, and Scarlett Johansson who's at least nice to look at. Plus if you like their later movies, I think it's always cool to go back and see how they broke into the movie business.

So, from their first to their latest, I have to throw my hat in with just about everyone else in the world and say I really dug Star Trek. I didn't come out of it feeling like I did when I left Iron Man (PUMPED!), but I still really enjoyed it. It might be because I'm not a Star Trek fan. Before trying to tackle the Original Series this past year, I had seen only a handful of episodes from any of the series' (that one episode of DS9 where they Tag and Bink their way through the Tribble episode) and the movies starring the original cast. I knew the basics, it's hard not to when you've worked for some of the geekiest magazines in the world (don't forget, I was in the research department while InQuest was still around). But, even not knowing much, I had no problem watching this flick, which was great, but I still got some of the nods to past stories.

I appreciate the amount of thought that Kurtzman and Orci along with director J.J. Abrams and producer Damon Lindelof put into this epic story, especially the way they made everything you know still make sense while starting this new continuity. Honestly, I really wish this cast would get together and just do a TV series. How cool would that be? Just forget about Heroes (I dislike that show so much that I actually wanted to hate Zachary Quinto as Spock, but he was so damn good I just couldn't) and fly Simon Pegg and John Cho in between movie roles and get that DONE!

Also, how cool was that drill scene? I started laughing as soon as the guy in the red suit showed up while Sulu and Kirk were wearing different colors. Em asked me what I was laughing at and I whispered "That guy's gonna die." She asked me how I knew and I told her just to watch and, man, they did NOT disappoint with that moment. Even better, though, was how Sulu and Kirk handled themselves given a crappy situation. I love how Chris Pine perfectly embodies that "never say die no matter how bad things look" mentality. Obviously, I'd like to see everyone return for a sequel, but I really hope Pine does a superhero movie. He could do justice to a bunch of heroes.

So, next up from Kurtzman and Orci will be Transformers: Rise of the Fallen and the last two episodes of Fringe that I missed and I'm pretty psyched about both.

Oh, DO go on.

Lords of Dogtown (2005) ... Is Awesome!

So, as some of you know, my job recently moved into NYC. As a result I've got a couple hours on the train every day to get to work, which means I've got time for reading and watching movies. It's nice to have something to do, but it also means I'm watching a movie in pieces instead of all at once. The first movie I watched like this was Lords of Dogtown.

Man, this was a rad movie. It took a while to watch the whole thing, but the great thing about the movie is that, even watching it that way, it was still crazy fun, engaging as hell and hit me in the guts at the end.

LOD is a biopic about a group of kids who were skating back in the 70s and went on to become a pretty big deal in the skateboarding world. It stars Emile Hirsch, some other kids who I hadn't heard of but were AWESOME, Rebecca De Mornay as Hirsch's strung-out mom, Heath Ledger as the surf and skate shop owner and Ethan from Lost as De Mornay's one-time boyfriend.

The kids start off just skating in their neighborhood, join up with Ledger's skate crew, getting big in the skate world then getting drawn on to bigger companies to skate for.

The crazy thing about the movie is that, I recognized Ledger early in the movie when he was surfing and then didn't realize it was him as the surf shop owner because he really gives himself up to the character. I really thought it was another guy because he puts on this great Cali-dude voice. Ledger's character isn't the center of attention by any means, but he's the character I felt for the most. He helps them out, sponsors their team, gets them into the game and then everyone bails on him for bigger and better (or, well, less and close-to-nothing).

So, on to the actual stars of the movie. I really like all these kids, even when they're being unlikable (a true testament to their abilities). Hirsch really shines as the troubled kid from a bad place who slowly slips into what appears to be the life of a gangster after walking away from pro skating.

I realize I'm not capturing how much I liked this movie or how good it really is, but I think what I liked about the movie is that it was real and, even though it kind of followed the biopic pattern of small time guys getting big and then burning out, there's a huge glimmer of hope at the end of the flick, well, for most of the characters. And, as a plus, unlike most biopics, everyone isn't dead at the very end.

Seriously, if you've ever liked Emile Hirsch or Heath Ledger in a flick or have any interest in skating or 70s period pieces or just damn good acting, you should definitely check Lords of Dogtown out. I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary it was based on Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Oh, DO go on.

Wired Is Awesome

Thanks to the good folks at /Film I heard that Lost co-creator and producer/director extraordinaire J.J. Abrams (a fellow initialate) is the acting guest editor of this month's issue of Wired. So, being a huge geek, of course I picked it up.

I was slightly familiar with Wired thanks to my time living with Rickey Purdin. He's one of the biggest purchasers of magazines I know. As a producer of magazines, I'm thankful for his ilk, even though I give him copies of ToyFare for free. Anyway, he always had a good stock of Wireds in the bathroom and I would...partake when the opportunity presented itself.

Anyway, I'm only through the initial news bits in the beginning of the mag and haven't gotten to the features yet (that's magazine lingo for articles), but this is a great magazine. It's a great mix of science and entertainment. Plus, a friend and colleague from the good old days at Ohio Wesleyan Jen Trolio has a bit in there called "Life's Secret Codes" on page 20. I completely freaked out when I saw her name in the byline and then got really jealous, but mostly it's cool to see someone else from my incredibly boring Journalism 110 (and also a fellow first semester freshman in a class full of upperclassmen) doing something in the magazine world.

Employment of friends aside, I'm also really impressed with the clean design sense of the magazine. It never feels cluttered even when there are a ton of elements on the page. I was also impressed with how easy to understand even the more complicated articles and sidebars. Plus, I haven't come across any spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors, which does the tiny editor part of my heart good.

But hey, if you're even remotely interested in science or like Star Trek and Lost, you should probably grab this issue and dive in. I think I'm going to get a subscription. It's about time I start doing my part for the industry that I make my living off of.


Oh, DO go on.

Black Panther Is Awesome Part 2: Wild Kingdom

2009-02-25
8:38:59 pm

Part two in my argument why Black Panther is an awesome comic.

X-MEN/BLACK PANTHER: WILD KINGDOM

(Black Panther #8-9, X-Men #175-176)

Written by Reginald Hudlin & Peter Milligan, drawn by David Yardin & Salvador Larroca

X-Men/Black Panther: Wild Kingdom isn't exactly the best example of why Black Panther is awesome. As I mentioned last time one of the big reasons I like this book so much is that it feels like it's firmly entrenched in the Marvel U without getting too detailed or confusing. That all gets hindered when you bring in the X-Men. I know a lot of people are all about the X-Men, but I still find them to be the most difficult franchise to get into thanks to the incredibly dense history. It's not even that Milligan's story is all that confusing, I just have a hard time placing this story in the long history of X-Men. You've got Gambit and Rogue on the same team, but what's their deal? Emma's there too, but is this still when Astonishing was going on? None of this really matters to the story, but it is distracting. I do like how both writers handle Storm and Wolverine though, two characters who will be important in their own ways coming up.

The story of this book is that the Red Ghost wants to start a new commie ape society in Africa. There's something about mutant animals, which gets the X-Men interested. BP of course gets involved too because this is his turf. For those of you unfamiliar with the Red Ghost, he's a communist scientist who can turn intangible and has created super powered apes who talk. There's another scientist guy in the story who can absorb mutant powers.

I'll be honest, the larger story here isn't all that interesting unless you're a huge Red Ghost fan (and I know some people out there are). What is cool about this story is seeing Storm and Black Panther together. Like I said before I don't know much about either character aside from what I've read in this book, so I'm not sure if there were any previous hints of their relationship or if this is the first readers saw of it, but I like how they are around each other, especially considering how adversarial they tend to be towards one another. It's cool to see the beginning of their love story (even if it's not the chronological beginning).

Oh, Dragon Man's in the book too which is pretty cool, but, again, the overall story isn't all that interesting. As far as my collection goes, I'm not all too concerned about adding this one to my collection, unless I can get it on Sequential Swap (a great site to get rid of some of your old trades as well as get some cool new ones). But, don't let that deter you from checking out my future installments of Black Panther Is Awesome, as Part 3 will focus on Bad Mutha, the arc that got me interested in this book in the first place.

Oh, DO go on.

Black Panther Is Awesome Part 1: Who Is The Black Panther?

2009-02-19
4:00:36 am

I've gained a bit of a reputation around the hallowed halls of Wizard as the dude who LOVES Reggie Hudlin's Black Panther comic. I came into it a bit late in the game (somewhere around the early teens I think), went back, got caught up and have been reading ever since. And, while I think the book got a bit weak in the over-long Fantastic Four issues (I might get to those eventually), I still think it's a pretty great series overall both because it made me care about a character I didn't really have any feelings toward one way or another (I never read the previous series') and because it felt like Reggie was really utilizing the vast resources of the Marvel Universe without getting too bogged down in said history.

So, in this semi-recurring feature called Black Panther Is Awesome, I'll be taking a trade by trade look at why this book rocks my world. So here we go with the first trade, Who Is The Black Panther?

BLACK PANTHER: WHO IS THE BLACK PANTHER?

Written by Reginald Hudlin & drawn by John Romita Jr.

Collecting Black Panther 1-6

Okay, right off the bat, I've got to say that this is one of the few cases in which I've really liked John Romita Jr.'s art. Usually it's a little too boxy for my tastes, but for some reason it really works on this book.

Anyway, the crazy thing about the first issue is that it doesn't even feature T'Challa, the current black panther, but instead focuses on three different Black Panthers from times past repelling foreign invasions, including a pretty rad fight between T'Challa's pops and Captain America back in World War II that looks even more vintage thanks to Romita's pencils (not sure how that works, but it does!). We're made aware of these past battles thanks to a small group of American politicians and military dudes trying to figure out if Wakanda poses a threat. We're also treated to a few small scenes of bad guys talking to each other, one of which turns out to be the Klaw, who, even I know, is the guy that killed T'Challa's dad back in the day. I do have one complaint about these flashback scenes, though. The dialogue seems way to modern at times. It's not a huge deal, but it is the kind of thing that could pull someone out of the story.

All of this sets up a few interesting scenarios. Who's the bad guy recruiting Klaw? What will the U.S. government try and pull? And most of all, who is the current Black Panther? We've seen these past ones, so what's T'Challa like? We'll get the answers plus more questions as things move on.

Also of interest, the footage we've seen of the Black Panther cartoon, which will be on BET, looks like they just animated this first issue like those old motion comic cartoons from the 70s. As you can probably guess, I'm pretty excited about that series whenever it comes out.

You know what's crazy about the second issue? Still no T'Challa as Black Panther. We get to see T'Challa challenge his uncle for the title of Black Panther and win which is pretty rad. Along with the scenes we also get some background about Wakanda where we find out that the Panther is the god of the people and also rules them as a king. We also get treated to some more pretty cool and sometimes brutal fight scenes between T'Challa's uncle and the challengers.

There's also an interesting set-up in the character of Shuri, T'Challa's sister who also wanted to try out to become the Black Panther, but was stopped by a falling opponent of her uncle's just as T'Challa jumped into the fray. There's some more U.S. government stuff that gets a bit old as the series moves on, but it's still pretty interesting here. Plus, Klaw recruits a bad guy/girl named Cannibal who seems to take over bodes based on physical contact. The seeds are planted.

The third issue is kind of an origin issue with some more team building on the bad guy's side. It seems as though Rhino and Batroq the Leaper (minus the silly costume, but still sporting the accent) have joined Klaw's cadre of evil somewhere in Africa. It turns out that Klaw is related to one of the dudes who we saw trying to invade Wakanda and getting killed. Klaw became an assassin hired to kill T'Challa's dad, killed him and T'Challa's brother only to get shot by a young T'Challa. Klaw went back to Belgium where they turned him into a cyborg killing machine. We also get a glimpse of what fueled T'Challa to become the badass dude we will eventually see in the book and got a glimpse of when facing off against his uncle.

The issue is capped with a few more additions to the villain crew in the form of the Vatican's Black Knight, who even sports an ebony blade and a ruler of a neighbor of Wakanda who is on Klaw's side. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into the actual Black Knight's continuity, but they did a call out to it in the most recent issue of Captain Britain (a really great book, highly recommended to all).

Finally, in issue four we get to see T'Challa in his Black Panther gear as the bad guys finally begin the assault. I don't want to get in too many of the details because they're pretty cool, but we get a great look at how the population of Wakanda looks up to T'Challa and how he, in turn, respects them. We also get treated to an example of the Rhino's toughness and an aerial dog fight with the Black Knight, plus the reveal that Radioactive Man is also on Klaw's Crew.

Issues five and six really display the throw down between BP and his people and Klaw's Crew (I like that name, they should get uniforms made up). The U.S. government even gets involved by deploying a group of cyborg soldiers that seem to have an awful lot in common with Deathlok, though the connection isn't made on the page. Oh, the Panther also has a freaking flight cycle. Awesome!

In the end, Panther faces off against Klaw, while his sister takes on Radioactive Man and Cannibal takes over his cousin in America (he's a diplomat of some kind). So, even though the good guys (and girls) prevail in their own way, there's still some lingering trouble.

So, what do I like about this book (aside from what I already mentioned)? Well, I'm pretty fascinated by Wakanda as a setting and Hudlin sets things up really well. You get to see both its technologically advanced side but also it's older, warrior and honor based culture. It's a really cool setting that really serves T'Challa later on and shows how he truly is a product of his environment.

I also really like this collection of somewhat classic Marvel villains. You've got Rhino, Klaw, Batroq the Leaper and Radiative Man all teaming up in a way that doesn't seem forced at all. Plus, I didn't even realize it until just now how little Black Panther is in the series and I was still really really into it. It's pretty cool.

Okay, this was a really long post, but I had to get in why I think BP is so awesome. Look for more installments later as I've read the first four Black Panther trades, but haven't read the X-Men/Black Panther trade in a while (I might just skip that one to save some time).

Oh, DO go on.

Machine Girl (2008) Is Freaking Awesome!!!

2009-01-31
5:20:06 am

Holy crap, Machine Girl is an awesome movie. If you like action, big guns, Asian school girls, Dead Alive levels of blood, crazy murders, track suit wearing ninjas and a quartet of vengeful relatives with a football (American, I'll say soccer when I mean soccer) motif and gun gauntlets, then this is the movie for you.

I first heard about this flick last year when one of my buddies sent it around in an E-mail. I was pretty blown away by the trailer, which turned out to be the first few minutes of the movie, and was super excited when I came across it on Netflix and bumped it to the top of my list.

Here's the basic story. The main girl, Machine Girl (or MG from here on out) has this brother who's being bullied by the son of a Yakuza. Little bro gets killed in a tussle with the bullies which sends his sister on a murderous rampage that leads her to the Yakuza who cuts her arm off. This is after her arm gets tempura fried by the mom of one of the other kids. Hilarious. So, after her arm gets sliced, she goes to this mechanic who builds her an arm that's a freaking Gatling gun. From there, the aforementioned ninjas in red track suits and catcher protective gear show up to get massacred. It's their deaths that lead to their family members getting recruited by the bad guys and turned into football-themed assassins.

So, as you can see the movie is awesome. The action is great, the kills and gore are worthy of the best slasher movies and it's freaking funny. It knows how crazy it is and revels in it, just like I did. THIS is what I wanted Smokin' Aces to be. Thank God, someone's still making awesome bloody action movies. Thanks Japan!

Oh, DO go on.