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.

The Suicide Squad goes nuclear

Ya know with all this shit going on with north korea and their nuclear program not to mention renewed tensions with russia and the threat of islamic terrorists trying to get their filthy hands on that shit for years now it got me thinking about Firestorm 64 written by John Ostrander. The issue came out in 1987 in which the Cold War was still going on here in the real world even though it would be only a few years later that the soviet union would collapse. For about the next two decades or so we really didn't think about nuclear war as something that we had to worry about any more.
So this issue was part of a story arc in which Ronald and professor Stein (who was dying of a brain tumor at the time) as Firestorm attempted to coerce the nuclear armed nations of the world into dismantling their nuclear arsenals under the threat of doing it for them if they didn't comply. A some what similar premise to the awful Superman 4 film which ironically also came out in 1987. Yeah that didn't go over to well and as a result Firestorm was declared an outlaw and become subject to arrest. As a result Captain Atom (prior to this issue), Task Force X, The Justice League mixed it up with Firestorm in an attempt to end his crusade.
The story line continues and comes to a head in Firestorm annual 2 in which The Squad and The League start to fight each other. Adding to the mayhem The Parasite who at the time was in The Squad goes rogue. Firestorm manages to deal with The Parasite and make his escape only to be confronted in the Nevada desert by a russian super powered agent named Pozhar. The show down happens shortly before professor Stein's tumor finally kills him and disrupts the Firestorm bond in the process which happens only seconds before both the U.S. and Soviet governments try to nuke both combatants. Good stuff, makes me miss the 80s all that much more.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/suicide-squad-the-complete-ostrander-run-1st-time--t24588.html

Enter The Tiger

By artist Craig Cermak

I like this, Bronze Tiger has almost a Bruce Lee kinda vibe going on here.

Gal Gadot at Justice League panel with Wonder Woman cosplay fan

Just a heads up, there's a ton of 2017 Comic-Con videos containing panels of just about every up coming sci-fi/comic book movie and TV series both on cable and NetFlix this year. It's astonishing how many big time A list celebrities are at this event in San Diego now. Back when I went in 1994 it was pretty big but nothing like it is now. A Hell of a lot easier and cheaper to get into back then as well, now it's almost like you gotta know somebody on the inside in order to get into the con.

By the way have I ever mentioned here how much I fucken hate donald trump? Big thanks to Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool which is where I found this funny ass cartoon . . .

 http://calvinscanadiancaveofcool.blogspot.com/

Entertainment Weekly Magazine presents The Ultimate Wonder Woman Guide

I picked this up a couple of days ago at a local super market. It's pretty cool not only does it have a bunch of great stuff in regards to the production and cast of the Wonder Woman movie it also in general covers the history and evolution of the character in a very comprehensive and detailed way. The guide goes all the way back to the guy who came up with the Wonder Woman character (also the inventor of the polygraph) to the classic Linda Carter TV series, Wonder Woman's countless appearances in multiple forms of media over the years, her impact on pop culture and even the upcoming Justice League movie.

The back cover has some pretty sweet art work at first I thought it was John Byrne but it turns out I was mistaken. It was done by Jose Luise Garcia according to some research done by fellow blogger Dale Bagwell http://dbsuniverse.blogspot.com/

A fun photo spread with Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen and director Jenny Jenkins

You'll find a lot of nostalgia in this issue along with at least a few other things even some of the more hard core Wonder Woman fans out there might be surprised to see.

One other thing, my wife loves charm bracelets and started busting my balls for a Wonder Woman one ever since we saw the movie.

One of the most bad ass scenes ever in a comic book based movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIEwkn-Q2Oo

Adam West passes away at 88

Adam West as The Gray Ghost

Just heard the sad news (leukemia) a couple hours ago and I wanted to get a posting up this weekend with a little bit of my thoughts on West's career. As a kid I kinda used to like the original Batman TV show because like Spiderman on The Electric company it was one of the very few live action outlets available for some of my favorite comic book characters. As I got older I won't lie I did develop a certain degree of disdain for the show because of it's campyness although I certainly never felt that way for West himself who by all accounts has always been a stand up guy in his personal life.
I'm really glad that over the years he managed to in part rejuvenate his show biz career despite his type casting handicap with voice acting work on The Simpsons and The Family Guy. As some of you may remember he was also the voice actor in The Grey Ghost episode of the Batman animated series. That series brought a lot of critical acclaim and respect to the super hero genre and that episode in particular was certainly one of the best if not the best episode of the series. Ironically, West plays an out of work actor who can't couldn't find new acting gigs due to a type casting handicap but would go on to help Batman solve a series of crimes carried out by some psychotic fan boy using sophisticated remote controlled toys.

Ya know I have to admit even though I came to grow weary of the original Batman TV show I always maintained my fondness for the classic Batmobile from that series (I dug the Batboat to). I used to have the original die cast ones from Corgi but at least I still have a couple packaged ones from a Hotwheels release some 8 or 9 years ago which I saw in a Dollar store of all places. Looking back I should have picked up more of them. As a crime fighter you probably don't want to drive around seated in an open canopy (not much protection from gun fire) but that's ok it was such a cool design I still love it till this day.

My short and to the point Wonder Woman review

Ok here's your one posting for this month on what is largely an inactive blog site these days. Well DC's cinematic universe was badly in need of a hit after some what of a let down with Batman vs. Superman and the catastrophe that was the Suicide Squad. But I think Wonder Woman may have come to save the day as it were. And I must say it's a point of personal pride to see Israeli Jewish actress Gal Gadot (and former Israeli Defense Force soldier) deliver the leading lady role as this iconic character in her first solo film.
Gal Gadot is to Wonder Woman what Hugh Jackman is to Wolverine. That was a big part of what made this movie good and it had a great mix of non campy humor, ass kicking action and good secondary character development. I also like how they tied the beginning and the end to Wonder Woman's appearances in Batman vs. Superman. All that aside, as someone who is not a fan of the Star Trek reboot films (fuck you jj abrams) it was nice to see Chris Pine's talents as an actor not squandered on a shitty movie for a change.
On something of a side note I wanted to also mention that this movie has been under attack by the antisemitic BDS (boycott divest sanction) movement against Israel. Ofcourse this is because the film's leading lady is an Israeli Jew and former IDF soldier. The hezbolla controlled failed state shit hole known as lebanon banned the film. But I'm happy to say the movie never the less is cleaning up at the box office this weekend and has enjoyed very positive reviews by fan boys and regular audience goers alike. Knowing that Wonder Woman has become the latest BDS fail makes seeing it that much more satisfying.

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NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER. FOR SPARTA, FOR THEMYSCIRA.

Farewell 007

Roger Suave

So I'm just doing this spur of the moment posting on what is now mostly an in active blog site. Only heard the sad news about an hour ago about Roger Moore passing away at 89 from cancer. Right on the heels of Sound Garden's front man Chris Cornell no less but in his case his death was in some ways even more tragic given that he was only in his 50s. I figured I better throw something on the internet especially with all this russia/trump investigation and terror attack in Manchester drowning out all other news stories including this one. Again, what seemed to be one of those timeless celebrity icons from my child hood has left us. There's really not much of anything I can say that you don't know or haven't heard already if you know anything about Roger Moore's career so let me pivot a bit to some of the 007 toys I used to have when I was a kid.

Ya know I still see the 007 submarine car (Corgi) from time to time at comic and toy conventions, usually going for a pretty hefty price tag. Especially for the ones that are in better condition part of that being if the 007 logo sticker is still present and not too tattered and faded.

I also used to have both the large scale and smaller Moon Raker shuttle craft toys (also from Corgi). Both featured retractable landing gears and cargo bay doors that open. But the bigger shuttle also had a removable satellite which had extending solar panels where as the smaller shuttle just had a fixed molded piece in it but I loved both em just the same. I see the smaller shuttle once in a while at a con but have yet to come across the bigger one. I wonder if all these 007 toys will bump up in value now?

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Might as well throw this up here as well while I'm at it it's seldom I ever come across any fan art related to the Ostrander era and it's pretty original and other wise well done. If you want to get a better look at it go here... http://elena-casagrande.deviantart.com/art/Suicide-Squad-banner-for-Blastoff-Comics-625873780

Bill Paxton passes away at 61 so to the grim reaper I say "Fuck you asshole!"

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Unfucken believable! I literally only 30 moments ago just read the sad news about Bill Paxton having passed away during some sort of surgical procedure. Here we go again with yet another iconic actor from the sci-fi genre of the 80s passing away and we're not even done with February yet. Many people wouldn't know that his list of credits both in front and behind the camera is very extensive but I'm not going to get into a long winded posting about his fantastic career. But suffice it to say I loved Bill Paxton he's been in some great films both big and small that I've enjoyed since the mid 80s.
The land mark role that put him on the map no doubt was private Hudson from ALIENS but we actually saw Bill before that in a small part in the original classic Terminator film. Since then he's played in a number of great films like Tombstone, Apollo 13 and One False Move. He's also done some work on the small screen I remember him in particular most recently from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D when that show was actually watchable. Bill was also in another great yet little known film that's one of my favorites from his acting resume. The movie is a modern day vampire film from the late 80s called Near Dark in which Paxton plays a psychotic vampire with an entertaining and twisted sense of humor when it comes to hunting his prey and taking on his enemies.

As if 2016 wasn't bad enough it looks like 2017 is already becoming a shit year for celebrity deaths from my child hood in the science fiction genre. We also lost Richard Hatch to cancer earlier this month whom you remember from Battlestar Galactica, The Streets of San Francisco and most recently from Star Trek Axanar. I actually met him only about a year and a half ago at a convention in San Jose California.

Gordon Henley from the original Star Wars (A New Hope) film and also most recently in Rogue 1 thanks to inserted footage never used from A New Hope died from a bizarre and tragic choking incident during a meal last month.

Let me just throw this in here real quick let's see if you can figure out the Star Wars reference here in this Battlestar Galactica comic book clip art from Dynamite Entertainment.

Anyways, also last month we lost Miguel Ferrer whom Robocop fans certainly remember and perhaps even some Star Trek fans as well. Miguel died of throat cancer.

Lashina cosplay

Julie Wilhelm

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I remember when I first saw this Starfire bonus pin-up page back when I was a kid in the mid 80s. It was in the back pages of some issue of Ambush Bug (#2) which I was browsing at for reasons that I can't remember since I never had any interest in that character. I remember being so sprung at the time to see something like this in a comic book by a main stream publisher like DC.
But ofcourse by today's standards this is quite tame. Especially when you consider how the character has been re-imagined in the DCU reboot. At the time I was tempted to buy the issue just for that bonus pin-up page alone but just couldn't bring myself to paying the cover price for an issue of Ambush Bug. I've seen that same issue in $1 boxes a couple times recently but it's just as well to have found this Starfire bonus pin up online.

I guess KOBRA had a "heart attack" in the old DCU

I found this image on the KOBRA DC Wikia page so now I finally know what happened to one of my favorite villains in the old DCU. Well I suppose it was a fitting end for him after all he was a terrorist and a regular nemesis for both Checkmate and The Suicide Squad. The Janus Directive was just one good example of that. There's the kind of heart attack you get as a result of health issues and then there's the kind you can get from just pissing off Black Adam. So let's move on to what else I've got for you no comment leaving ingrates.
I just happened to come across this good video on youtube that explains the history of the Suicide Squad reiterations in the New DC Universe. What I liked about it is how it underscores the points I had made for the past few years about everything that was wrong with the Suicide Squad's reboot. A point I tried to make to the initial writer Adam Glass when I found him on facebook years ago . . .

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Ofcourse I ended up dropping the series during Glass's tenure as the writer feeling like he just wasn't picking up what I was laying down to him. The next reiteration known as The "New" Squad Squad written by who ever was pretty much more of the same ol same ol with the exception of Deadshot finally having his signature facial hair. But today I feel total vindication since clearly DC felt it necessary to reboot The Squad yet again with a line up that to date is the closest thing we've seen since the Ostrander era.