My 6 Favorite Things of 2021

It’s that time of year again. The end of it. And at the end of the year, everybody on the internet gets together and shares their Best Of lists for the previous year, this one being 2021. I’m no different. I’ve got favorites to talk about and share, and I’m happy to share them with you fine readers. Perhaps you’ll even agree with some of my choices!

As always, I don’t really listen to new music or read books, so I don’t have choices for those. That makes getting to six categories rather difficult, but I find ways to manage. Then we can dive into the really fun stuff! My favorite movie of the year? My favorite TV show? I was surprised by this one. How about video games? Or especially comics? There was a lot of great stuff to enjoy this year. I don’t claim to experience everything. I missed a ton of those really niche, arthouse movies. And I didn’t even up playing too many new video games. But I had a really good year, I think. And I’m looking forward to what this fancy new year has to offer.

Join me after the jump for my favorite bits and pieces of 2021. And feel free to share your own favorites below in the comments!

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The Batman Still Looks Darn Good!

A new trailer for The Batman arrived yesterday like a late Christmas present. Just out of the blue, poof! New Batman trailer. I guess that’s how the world works these days, always in mysterious ways. It’s another great trailer, this one showing off a lot more Catwoman and Riddler. In face, this is probably a trailer to avoid if you want to start avoiding any and all spoilers. Some plot points of the movie do get spoiled in this trailer, I would say.

I think The Batman is my most anticipated movie of the upcoming year. I know Marvel has a lot of good films coming out — like Thor: Love and Thunder — but The Batman is a new, darker, grittier take on the Dark Knight. And I like a good, fresh take on Batman. It’s just an innate feeling, possibly in all of us. So I’m excited to see how they pull this off, and if perhaps we’ll get a new, more open Batman movie franchise going forward.

You also have the option of watching this trailer in glorious 4K on Vimeo.

The Batman arrives in theaters on March 3.

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Let’s Celebrate the Gremlins (Animated)!

It’s still the Christmas season, so how about we celebrate the Gremlins? Some of their movies took place during Christmas, right? I haven’t seen a Gremlins movie in a dog’s age. But our favorite movie look animating YouTuber — Tell It Animated — spent the time to animate all the funky Gremlins! So let’s celebrate!

I love this guy. Gremlins is a fun choice.

As always, my recommendation is Robin. There’s plenty of movie and animation Robins to animate. And everybody loves a new Batman video, right?

Speaking of Gremlins, have you ever seen that classic Key and Peele sketch about Gremlins 2? That thing is so much fun!

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/25/21

Merry Christmas, everybody! It’s that magical sort of year when Christmas falls on a Saturday, coinciding with my comic book reviews! If you’re reading this on Christmas Day, more power to you! We had some nice comics this week, though everything is overshadowed by the stellar artistic achievements of the new issue of Nightwing.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Nightwing #87 for an artistic achievement that will hopefully go down in legend.

Behold this thing of sheer beauty

Meanwhile, I loved the Hawkeye finale and will have a review up one of these days. It was quite joyous, and accomplished everything I could have wanted. Hawkeye is probably my second favorite of the Marvel shows right now, I enjoyed it that much. I also tried the first issue of Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit this week and it was not for me. It’s not terrible, but it’s a little wonky.

Comic Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #82, Hawkeye: Kate Bishop #2, Nightwing #87 and X-Men: Trial of Magneto #5.

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Another Batgirl & Supergirl Christmas from Mike Maihack!

Artist Mike Maihack has a great tradition of doodling cute Batgirl and Supergirl comics every Christmas! I don’t have any of my own blog Christmas traditions, other than sharing Maihack’s latest adorable strip. So here it is!

Merry Christmas, Mike Maihack! And Merry Christmas everyone!

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