Category Archives: DC
Review: Teen Titans #12
A new issue of Teen Titans, a new villain appears out of nowhere. Writer Scott Lobdell just loves introducing random villains to this series. At least this guy – with the totally pointless name of ‘Diesel’ – seems to be a catalyst for learning more about the new Wonder Girl. Not that we learn much about her or him or her Silent Armor in this issue. In fact, we don’t actually accomplish very much in this issue at all. It’s just bland fighting, followed by a tiny bit of tempting exposition, and then the issue ends just as its getting started – leaving us with a fairly melodramatic cliffhanger that would fit better in comics 20 years ago.
Teen Titans #12
The character growth of the past few issues of Teen Titans is stopped. We’re back to the mindless, ‘x-treme’ superhero action.
Comic rating: 3/5: Alright.
I can’t bring myself to call this a bad issue…mostly because I can’t work up that much interest. Teen Titans #12 is just another in a long, disappointing line of issues. Teen Titans could have been a great comic coming out of the New 52. I know it was kind of flailing prior to the reboot, but back when Geoff Johns reintroduced the teens a few years ago, Teen Titans was amazing! It was my favorite comic at the time, by far. And Johns is now one of the top guys making the decisions at DC. Surely he could have had some influence over the Teen Titans. But no, they gave it to Scott Lobdell, and he’s brought the worst of the 90s comic book problems to the title.
There’s an emphasis on mindless action over meaningful character growth. The heroes are constantly stating the obvious and explaining the scenes they are in. The comic is far more concerned with making sure there’s something ‘x-treme’ happening on every page instead of taking a moment to breath.
Teen Titans is just not a very good comic. Entertaining? Perhaps a little. Good characters? Maybe, in the right situation. But overall, this comic is just all over the place. And the only place it’s not, is with it’s characters.
How Dark Knight Rises Should Have Ended
This greatness of ‘How It Should Have Ended…’ is back, baby!
Love the animation, love…most of the jokes. These people continue to produce some of the best stuff on the Internet. But if I’m being completely honest, I think they’ve lost touch with their original mantra. These videos usually now just make fun of various parts of the movie rather than focusing on creating an ‘alternate’ ending to show how a movie really should have ended.
And they are obsessed with their Superman and Batman sitting in a cafe gag! It’s like they spend more time coming up with jokes for those scenes than on actually riffing the movie. If you watch that video, when they finally get to the end of Dark Knight Rises and show what should have happened when Alfred was looking on Bruce and Selina…they just fall back on their Superman character rather than telling us how the movie really should have ended
Oh well, that’s just my pathetic two cents. Still a great web series.
Superman and Wonder Woman Sitting in a Tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
Long the fodder of Elseworlds tales and creepy fan fiction, DC Comics has decided to go ahead with an in-canon, for realsies, kissing and everything relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman. This is the New 52 people, you’re living in it!
But speaking as a longtime comic book reader and occasional curmudgeon, I am absolutely, 100% in favor of this hook-up.
I think new romantic relationships between classic superheroes is a good thing. It’s new, it’s exciting and it’s much better than just resting on the old, classic, long-boring relationships. Superman and Lois Lane? Please. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson? Been there, done that. Gambit and Rogue? Sayonara, Sugah!
Give me Superman and Wonder Woman. I want to read about Iceman and Kitty Pryde. And, most especially, I want Spider-Man and Captain Marvel!
The absolute worst thing that DC could do instead would be to create a brand new love interest for either Superman or Wonder Woman. Just look at Carlie Cooper in Spider-Man comics. She was created for the sole purpose of eventually becoming Peter Parker’s new girlfriend. Whatever stories the writers tried to give her, like being a police investigator, were just window dressing for her eventual existence as Peter Parker’s girlfriend. There was no drama. No ‘will they/won’t they’ playfulness. When a new female character is created solely for a relationship – or male character, for that matter – it’s just so fun to read.
This, however, will be fun to read. Wonder Woman is not beholden to Superman. She’s not around just to be his girlfriend. She had a lot going on right now. In fact, her comic series is a lot better and much more critically acclaimed than Superman’s title. He’s the one in dire straits here. So I, for one, want to see where this relationship goes. It’s going to debut next week in Justice League #12. I think it has a lot of potential.
What do you guys think? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments!
Green ‘Arrow’ Show to Have Cameos Right Away
Holy cow, you guys, the new superhero TV show Arrow is not going to waste any time in bringing other DC heroes and villains to the small screen. This is fantastic news, exactly what we superhero geeks want to hear. The best episodes of Smallville were always the ones that guest starred other famous superheroes. But it took them until Season 4 to start doing that, and even then they didn’t appear all that often.
While Arrow, new this fall on the CW, is going to start having cameos galore in only the first handful of episodes! Clearly the people behind Arrow know exactly what the fans liked about Smallville.
The Huntress is going to appear around episode 6 for a multi-episode story, and will even be a love interest to Arrow.
Hopefully they don’t paint her mask on
According to Entertainment Weekly, the Huntress will be played by Jessica De Gouw. She’ll be the Huntress that appeared before the New 52 relaunch, where she was secretly Helena Bertinelli, daughter of Italian mobsters who became a costumed vigilante in order to bring down her crime family. So she’s perfect to appear alongside another urban vigilante like Arrow.
Here is how the show describes the Huntress:
“Helena is a potential love interest for Oliver Queen; a fellow vigilante, set on destroying her father’s organized crime empire. But Helena’s blind pursuit of revenge will put her on a collision course with the Arrow.”
That’s pretty awesome. Huntress is quite cool, and would fit perfectly in the urban vigilante environment.
In the villain department, so far we have Deathstroke, Deadshot and China White all confirmed as appearing. Deathstroke the Terminator is one of the greatest, toughest mercenaries in the world. I don’t think he’s been cast yet, but the producers have confirmed his little Easter Egg tease in one of the show’s trailers. Deadshot will be played by Michael Rowe, and I’m really excited by him. Deadshot is the world’s greatest gunman. China White will be played by Kelly Hu. She’s the leader of a drug cartel who met Arrow while he was marooned on a desert island.
Deadshot makes guns look cool
And that’s not all! We already know that Dinah Lance, Black Canary, will be a main character on the show. She has always been Green Arrow’s on-again, off-again girlfriend in the comics. But Producer Mark Guggenheim has hinted at other superheroes showing up eventually. Heroes like Batman. Or even Green Arrow’s comic book sidekick Speedy. And you know how much I love sidekicks!
So yeah, it looks like Arrow is turning out to be geekier and cooler than I ever thought possible! How awesome is that?
See? Something for the ladies as well
Adorable Robins
Found on the Internets. Drawn by this artist here. This marks my 700th post! I hope everybody has a good weekend!
Henchman-4-Hire 