Geek Overload!

Hang on, I'm comin'. Its Sunday, May 15, 2011, I'm limpin' like a pimp with polio, and this is The Side. Blogger was down for most of Thursday and Friday, so I'm making up for that today. As for the limp, I'm pretty sure I aggravated an old injury. I came off a roof years ago and broke my heel. Taking the down time necessary to let it heal right wasn't an option, so I kept going on with things, and typically its fine. However, work this week involved jumping over some railing repeatedly, and eventually I landed wrong.

Guess its time to put my feet up and talk some comics.

FALL OF THE AMAZON

Well, I said the Wonder Woman TV show was looking and sounding pretty bad, and it seems that upon seeing the pilot episode NBC agreed with me. I've followed this story and read a bunch of articles about it and I've looked at comments attached to the articles. No one had much of anything nice to say about it.

Look, the girl was pretty, and she might be a pretty good actress, but she looked either freaked out or constipated whenever she was photographed doing any stunts. The costume was redesigned three times based off the latest Jim lee design which no one really cares for. It doesn't look like Wonder Woman, plain and simple. Word is the script was atrocious. I heard there was a seen with Wonder Woman crying over her ice cream with Etta Candy over the stress of being Wonder Woman and running a business, which wouldn't surprise me one bit since David Kelley was behind this.

This thing didn't have a prayer.

Fans keep bitching and moaning about the lack of a live action Wonder Woman project. I still say be happy with the awesome animated feature from a few years ago. But, if you want to do this right you put Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and Eric Kripke in a room together, and you let them have it out. Rucka and Simone understand what is great about the character of Wonder Woman and Kripke knows how to make epic TV and still ground it. You let them get the ball rolling. You then find an actress who is athletic, and preferably with a strong background in dance. Dancers perform incredible physical feats while making it look graceful and easy. Wonder Woman is as tough as they come, but she's incredibly graceful. This is important, just as much as having the acting chops to pull off a character who is elegant and caring and very compelling.

This can be done right.

COMIX!!

This week FLASHPOINT #1 came out in which DC let's us all know that Barry Allen is the greatest hero ever and without him the DC Universe would be doomed, but not in a way that made sense like "Chain Lightning". The effects of this story will be felt through out comics everywhere. In fact, Marvel's "Fear Itself" storyline concludes with Barry Allen telling everyone that 'everything will be alright' and then resurrecting Johnny Storm with the power of his awesomeness.

Let's light this candle with BATMAN INCORPORATED #6 in which we discover quite a few things, but foremost is Chris Burnham is one hell of an artist. Love his work here, right down to him drawing Bruce Wayne's eyebrows to suggest little bat wings. These previous issues have been a lot of build up. We've got an idea of what's going on. If you haven't been following but were thinking about maybe trying to jump on this train, this is the issue to do it. I've talked a lot about how Bruce Wayne is structuring this thing and here it all is laid out pretty for us. We also get a good taste of how this organization is going to operate. There's a couple of new members including a mysterious new Wingman who will be Bruce's ace-in-the-hole in the upcoming fight with Leviathan (Its Barry Allen, because Barry Allen is the awesome-est hero ever). This new foe has been creeping me out. He weaponizes children and its revealed that the youngest one is 18 months old. That pushes all the buttons I need to make me want Bruce Wayne to take this guy out. This book is flat out cool.

Moving it on over to R.E.B.E.L.S. #28. This is the book's final issue. They've had a great run. This was definitely a sleeper book which I don't think had a huge following, but everyone who got onboard really dug it. Word is this book got axed to make room for all the FLASHPOINT stuff, because Barry Allen is so awesome that there's just not enough room for all of the existing DC titles and the amount of awesomeness Barry Allen possesses. We get the conclusion of the battle with Starro. There wasn't a ton of loose ends to get wrapped up, so this book is nice and tight. Thank you Tony Bedard, Claude St. Rubin, and the rest of the creative team for a really fun ride.

In RED ROBIN #23, Time is up against assassins who are in competition to kill important people and he's got to stop them before they get to Barry Allen thus depriving the world of his awesomeness. Tim's running a nasty risk trying to get the inside track to take this group on, and its one that Commissioner Gordon and Batman don't quite approve of. Marcus To is back on pencils, and thank goodness for that. The story is pretty good. Tim's walking a fine line, and I'm hoping to see this pay off.

Things are getting thick in BATGIRL #21 as the Reapers send their latest agent, Harmony, on missiony types things which our gal Steph has to stop, which she does with a "huzzah", thus validating me for bringing back "huzzah". She also has to deal with her stalker, The Grey Ghost, who turns from annoying to creepy to jerk. I've enjoyed the dynamic in this book with Steph and Wendy, but its looking like that's coming to an end as Wendy is leaving to go to Nanda Parbat to try heal herself and start a church devoted to the Awesomeness of Barry Allen. This book continues to be consistently entertaining.

BIRDS OF PREY #12 has Jesus Saiz joining Gail Simone in this new storyline, and I'm one happy little nerd. I totally dig Saiz. I loved his stuff on the old CHECKMATE series and hes true to form here. The Birds latest case connects with one of The Questions, so we get a Question/Huntress team-up which is always a blast. We have the Birds working an infiltration, which makes it so fitting that Saiz is onboard with a superhero/espionage angle. I'm going to be honest, this felt like a Greg Rucka book. This is what I think it would be like if Rucka took a turn writing BoP. I mean this as a complete compliment to Gail Simone, as Rucka is in my eyes one of the top espionage story writers working today. I loved this. I loved this so much that I can't even slip a Barry Allen awesomeness line in here.

In HELLBOY: BEING HUMAN, HB and Roger the Homunculus head to South Carolina to investigate a weird grave robbing that takes a nasty twist. Its a nasty case with some bad voodoo involved. Roger is forced into action which he's not very comfortable with. He's not the violent sort. Fortunately, Barry Allen shows up to tell him that everything is alright. This is a fun little one-shot. If you haven't gotten a good, creepy Hellboy fix in a while, then this should be just what you need.

This has been the word of Barry Allen for the people of Barry Allen. Praise be to Barry. Allen.

NOZZ'S FAVORITE SUPERHERO MOVIES: TOP 10!!

Mike Federali wanted to know, so here we go. These are my favorites, and not based of critical reviews or how much money they made. These are also strictly live action movies, because if I start factoring in animated movies this list changes entirely.

10: The Phantom The first hero to wear tights, and purple ones at that! Billy Zane hit the weights like a champ because he refused to wear a padded costume. Same writer as INDIANA JONES AND LAST CRUSADE. Its a family friendly adventure and a great popcorn flick.

9: The Crow This movie pretty much hit cult status upon release. This was going to be Brandon Lee's star maker, but ended up his swan song. Great film with an awesome soundtrack.

8: Spider-man Tobey Maguire and Willam Defoe really brought their a games. While I'm not a big fan of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane I'm willing to look past that for the many great scenes in this film.

7: Sin City They filmed a comic and did it well. Brilliant cast. Robert Rodriguez brought Frank miller's comic to the big screen in a way no one was really ready for. This was the big comeback for Mickey Rourke and he played Marv to the hilt.

6: Ironman 2 Speaking of Rourke, notice how the first Ironman flick ain't here? Its because Mickey Rourke drove this film like a champ. Robert Downey Jr. did his thing, but the rest of the cast were just as stellar.

5: Hellboy If you want to talk about great casting, Ron Perlman as Hellboy is spot on. This movie is a blast. Del Toro brought us right into the Hellboy world and mythos without a cop out or apology.

4: Batman Begins This is the best Batman film to date. Christian Bale is a great Bruce Wayne. And just when things got too heavy you have Michael Caine with every bit of charm you'd expect from Alfred Pennyworth. That's exactly what was missing from THE DARK KNIGHT: charm.

3: 300 No prisoners! No Mercy! This movie kicks ass on a primal level. They expanded on the comic quite a bit, but it was done so very well. This movie is one to watch when you need to get fired up to do what you've got to do.

2: Spider-man 2 Alfred Molina was remarkable here. Tobey Maguire again played an excellent Peter Parker. The train fight was remarkable. We really felt horrible for poor old Spidey making cheering him on as he saves the day that much more satisfying.

1: Thor That's right, I'm going there. Like I said when I reviewed it, this movie was a blast. Just a whole lot of fun. Good action. Funny as hell in parts. And it had a very solid plot and story. Top notch work and wasn't afraid to pull us straight into a fantasy world which it showed off gloriously.

MUSIC!!

Been a bit stressed this week. Missing Friday's post due to technical problems didn't help. Still, when you feel down, and Barry Allen is busy saving the world, there's only one thing to do.



That's my load for today. No numbers jump after the Pocoyopocalypse, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I'll see y'all Wednesday. My Barry Allen bless you and keep you.