DC Legends . . . not quite the stuff of legend for me

Ya know folks I may get a little bit of heat about this but I after doing some reading of the DC Legends mini-series this weekend I'm not that big of a fan. Now ofcourse this isn't the first time I've read the series but even back then it honestly didn't grab me despite all it had going for it. You had The Squad's first mission along with a bunch of some of the best heroes and villains in the DC Universe's history and great talent on the series like John Ostrander and John Byrne. I feel the same way about the original Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series after having finally read it I felt like it was really over rated despite it's legendary status among the DC readership. Can't quite put my finger on it as far as the why but both of these series just didn't make for a great read for me unlike say for example Marvel's original Secret Wars which was like an adrenaline charged page turner which holds up pretty good even today.

Justice League short review with spoilers

Ya know even when it comes to movies I'm really interested in I still generally don't care for reviews that go on beyond a few paragraphs. Write ups that last much longer then that generally start to become too tedious for my taste so with that being said here's what I thought of The Justice League. It was pretty good, not quite Avengers Civil War good but still good. Now I say this as someone who thinks Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice was better then most people gave it credit for. It's biggest failing in my opinion was the long running time, I think having taken out a minute here and couple minutes there from various scenes in the movie that lasted a bit too long would have gone a long way to making the story line move at a better pace and make the film over all more concise. Where as when it came to The Suicide Squad that was a complete fucken train wreck, there was nothing to build on for a better sequel unlike with Dawn of Justice.

So getting back to Justice League, no problem with the pace of the story line in this one. At least as far as it being too slow, if anything it might have even felt a bit rushed here and there. If you watched all the trailers for the movie you actually got a pretty good idea what to expect from most of the characters but there are some surprises as well. Although Ezra Miller (Flash) is the primary source of comedy relief we do get quite a few funny lines from Ben Affleck (Batman). Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) and Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) were about what you would expect as seen in the trailers and I say that in a good way. In some ways I thought Ray Fisher as Cyborg was the stand out character. As the least well known of the DC characters used in this ensemble cast they did a good job of developing him in fact there were times where he almost felt like the adult in the room during some of the team in fighting moments which we get a few of. Jeremy Irons was also great as Alfred Pennyworth. And yes, Superman does make a come back and it's handled fairly well.
Information wise the movie throws a lot at you. Those who are familiar with the Justice league story lines and characters from the comics will have an easier time catching all the details, references and Easter eggs. The CGI got to be a bit heavy handed at times. Steppenwolf works ok as the villain in the movie even though they took a lot of liberties with the character from what I could see. Same goes for the parademons and motherbox. No Darkseid in this one and I'm not really sure if we can expect to see him in the next Justice League installment. But they were pretty clear we'll be seeing more DC heroes added to the team that's for sure. Despite whatever problems it had it's certainly worth the price of admission you'd be a damn fool not to see it at least once while in theaters.

P.S. The Blade Runner sequel was an all around disappointment but Thor Ragnarock turned out to be better then I expected despite the problems I had with it.

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Saw these at the store right after the movie. I really love seeing cool 80s retro stuff on store shelves and racks these days. Brings back so many good memories!

Suicide Squad 58

Thanksgiving Day update: I'm posting this panel for my blog bro Dale over at http://dbsuniverse.blogspot.com/2017/11/so-who-would-win-taskmaster-vs-human.html Apparently Sports Master and Task Master from the Marvel Universe have
the same "photographic reflexes" power hence forth I think that would have made for an interesting match up between the two.

November 25 Update: So just last night I was doing some shopping at a Target store when I spotted a single Justice League movie Batmobile from Hotwheels. It was the only one on the rack in the 99 cents Hotwheels section so ofcourse I grabbed it even though I wasn't on the look out for it specifically. It's just one of those things when you see it for a buck you just get it. Just like when I saw the Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice edition on a toy rack in a grocery store of all places a couple months ago. Clearly in each case they were missed by those asshole dealers that go around to stores on shipment days and buy up all the shit you can hardly ever find but wish you could. As you can see the main difference between the two is the color and the extra gun emplacements including a turret that actually swivels.

Awesome classic Ragman fan art

Absolutely bad ass! This is some top notch fan art, the figure composition, the colors and even the detail in the costume. And ofcourse I love the extra added touch of Ragman tearing up a nazi flag while also sporting a Magen David (star of David) pendant. All very appropriate for our "clothe golem" Jewish avenger. And in case you were wondering, this is where I found it https://www.deviantart.com/art/Ragman-705702433

Too bad we never got to see this in the old DCU it would have been epic!

November 11 Update: Saw this from Hot Wheels at a local Toys R Us and on a whim decided to grab it. It was the only one that they had and I think it must have been missed by those asshole dealers who usually show up at Toys R Us stores right before they open on the days they get their shipments and buy up all the hot items so they can then double the price at cons. I actually used to have the original one from Ertl that came out in 1989 but I always hated how they had the bat symbol painted on the roof I never understood the point of that. It's like yeah we know this is the Batmobile already http://toyconnect.blogspot.com/2012/05/ertl-1989-164-scale-batmobile.html Ever since I saw this version of The Batmobile at that vintage car show in Hayward (go back a few postings) recently I had it in the back of my mind to hopefully own a nice replica again some day with out getting ripped off. 

The Vigilante and Peacemaker teamed up against the war on terror back in the 80s

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I recently grabbed issue 38 of The Vigilante (1987) out of a 3 for $1 box it seemed like it would make for a fun read. In this issue these two Checkmate affiliated characters* team up to take on a docked freighter ship full of Middle East terrorists. Unfortunately toward the end of the issue they ended up turning on each other over who gets to kill one of the top priority targets and as expected that fight ended in a stalemate. Over all it wasn't bad, certainly worth what I paid for it I hope you enjoy the clip art I posted.

* Peacemaker made multiple appearances in the The Suicide Squad series during the Janus Directive story line https://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/search?q=duchess

Fan art by Steve Erwin

Gal Gadot hosts Saturday Night Live tonight

Gal Gadot's $820 million world wide block busterWonder Woman has become one of the biggest BDS (the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel) fails of all time. Her next appearance as Wonder Woman in The Justice League next month is guaranteed to be another massive commercial success. SNL has had something of a sketchy record for episodes that don't suck vs ones that do but Gal hosting tonight's episode in and of it's self should make it worth watching.

I just got done watching the episode and it was great! Gal Gadot did part of the monologue in Hebrew and according to her this was the first SNL episode broad cast live in Israel. Also, I can honestly saw most of the skits (both with and with out Gal) were funny especially the one with Gal on a date with O.J. Simpson. Hosting SNL is always a milestone for any up and coming celebrity so we can consider tonight yet another BDS fail. Jew haters every where who have tried to defame her would love nothing more then to see Gal Gadot be discredited as a role model for woman and see her career go down the drain.

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A funny socio-politically charged moment between Amanda Waller and then president Ronald Reagan from the pages of Secret Origins issue 14 (1987). Can you just imagine what Amanda Waller would think about donald trump?

Just throwing this out there for the Hell of it. Anybody remember this DC Comics series based on the mini-series hit TV show from the mid 80s? V taught us that fascism isn't just a human concept, not by a long shot.

Len Wein...and now Harry Dean Stanton

Bill Sienkiewicz

Ya know it's ironic that this tragic news about Len Wein's passing should come just over a week after I fished this issue of Comics Interview 32 out of a quarter box. Which as you may have guessed I grabbed because of The Swamp Thing article inside. Cheesy as the early 80s Wes Craven film was it seemed really cool to me at the time and it was actually my introduction to The Swamp Thing character. And then one day I saw an issue at a drug store some where and that would be the beginning of what was a pretty big Swamp Thing collection. I even had this Swamp Thing action figure at one point it was actually kinda cool it had this detachable hand with a line attached to it that pulls the hand like a fisherman's reel.
As for Wolverine, I was a fan long before it was hip to be a Wolverine fan in the 80s I collected every appearance I could find. Back then a Wolverine appearance in a non-X-Men title was always guaranteed to bump up it's value but I didn't care much about that I just wanted to read more Wolverine and seeing him interact with other Marvel super heroes from Captain America to Spider-Man and even ROM was beyond awesome. Ofcourse Wein's body of work went far beyond just co-creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine and I think it's nice to know all that will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

Len Wein and Hugh Jackman at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con

Over the years I've done a few unique Swamp Thing centric blog postings over here if you never saw them or don't remember them you suck, but here are the links anyways...
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-didnt-squad-ever-run-into-swamp.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2016/11/swamp-thing-and-golem.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2013/12/poison-ivy-vs-swamp-thing.html

September 15th Update: So now we have it happen again this week. Another big name from our child hood as comic book and sci-fi fans has passed away. This time it was Harry Dean Stanton who died at 91. Stanton has had a long career on both the big screen and small spanning for decades. I knew him best as Brett from ALIEN and as Brain from Escape from New York. And don't forget about Stanton's brief appearance in the first Avengers film where he plays a security guard who finds Bruce Banner amid a mass of debris caused by him falling through the roof of an abandoned building while he was The Hulk.

Black Power

Fan art by Peter Temple left click to enlarge

Obviously I like this fan art other wise I wouldn't have posted it here but at the same time part of me wants to see even more black heroes from Marvel and DC in here kinda like those Marvel Universe Handbook or DC Who's Who montage covers. Off the top of my head specifically I'm thinking Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Blade, the John Stewart Green Lantern and Mr. Fantastic. Don't know if Amanda Waller quite fits the profile of what defines a "super hero" but I'd include her just on general principle.

Ok and now for another kind of black power. Just by chance today I passed through The 4th Annual Vintage Car Show in Downtown Hayward (California) while running some errands and look what they had there. Not at all a fan of the tim burton Batman films (or much of anything from burton for that matter) but I have to admit the batmobile in those movies was one of the few things they had going for them. The tumbler is my favorite though.