Friday, October 30, 2015

Games I Beat: Batman Arkham Knight


Batman Arkham Knight
Vengeance Simulator
1 Player
System: PS4
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: October 9th, 2015

So the Arkham series, you know, not my favorite series of games really. Look I like Batman, and Arkham Asylum was like "HOLY SHIT! They finally got a superhero game right!" I mean, the first Spider-Man games based on his first couple movies were good, but really Asylum blew it out of the water in my opinion. Then City opened things up, and it got a bit tedious and the plot a bit convoluted. Then Origins, the shady cheap whore of the bunch, stumbled out looking underwhelming while promising an experience mirroring the previous games. Poor girl just couldn't match up with the pros. Which leads to Arkham Knight. It's probably the best of the bunch honestly, I mean, YOU CAN DRIVE THE FREAKING BAT MOBILE!

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Road to Justice: The Return of Swamp Thing


The Return of Swamp Thing
Directed by: Jim Wynorski
Starring: Dick Durock, Heather Locklear, Louis Jourdan
Released: 1989
Watched: October 22nd, 2015

Thoughts Before: After the original Swamp Thing movie, I'm not expecting much. On the other hand, there is almost no way this movie could be worse than the Superman flicks I've been subjected to as of late. Oddly, this movie wound up leading to a 72 episode television series. Apparently this movie tried to be a bit more humorous, and the show went with the original's "darker" themes. I'm morbidly curious about the TV show, they even managed to get the same guy to play Swamp Thing from the movies in the show.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Road to Justice: Superman IV The Quest for Peace


Superman IV The Quest for Peace
Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Mark Pillow, Margot Kidder
Released: 1987
Watched: October 17th, 2015

(Apologies for the delay, these posts are going up on October 21st, but are being posted under their intended date. Life got in the way.)

Thoughts Before: From what I can gather, this is the least respected most looked down upon of the Superman movies. I can understand a movie series falling apart by the fourth movie, but how does a series that was never good manage to last that long. Yeah I said it. The Superman movies are fucking terrible. Every last one of them has been a boring mess with very little going for it, other than Christopher Reeve being a pretty damn good Superman/Clark Kent. Really anyone managing to pull off that dynamic well deserves praise. I just wish he had been given better movies to work with.

Friday, October 09, 2015

Road to Justice: Supergirl


Supergirl
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Starring: Faye Dunaway, Helen Slater, Hart Bochner, Peter Cook
Released: 1984
Watched: October 8th, 2015

(Apologies for the delay, these posts are going up on October 21st, but are being posted under their intended date. Life got in the way.)

Thoughts Before: Yet another movie I haven't seen yet, all I know is this is supposedly pretty bad. I don't really know what expect, and especially coming off of the other Superman movies my expectations for this are incredibly low. An 80's flick starring a female superhero with very little ground to build off in regards to the superhero genre? Yikes, things aren't looking up for our maid of might! (No really, they called her that once upon a time...)

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Occult Origins of October: Man-Bat


Man-Bat vs. Batman (Detective Comics #400, 402 and 407)
Written by Frank Robbins
Drawn by Neal Adams
Published by DC Comics
Released 1984 (Originally 1970/1971)

Randomly one evening while playing through a good chunk of Batman Arkham Knight, I realized I didn't really know much about Man-Bat. That night I started on a journey to assemble every single Man-Bat appearance in order, by the next day I'd gotten all my bats in a row as it were. The Man-Bat origin I'm used to plays out a little differently than how it originally worked out. With Man-Bat killing, or at least seriously pushing away, his wife/fiance after accidentally transforming into a seemingly mindless beast. This actual origin lays the groundwork for that, but it's a much more silver-age take on the concept. Zany, if silver-age means nothing to you.