7/7/2008 - Hi, I'm a Marvel...and I'm a DC: Hulk and Batman

I can't believe I initially liked Batman and Robin. Yes, it's the movie now known as the worst modern superhero movie of all time. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, I know I was a lot younger and more impressionable to pop culture, but damn... I thought I would have at least some taste. Looking back at it now... holy crap. I know what the director Joel Schumacher was thinking. Batman Forever made a bundle at it was campier than the Tim Burton ones... why not make the next movie even campier? The problem with that thinking is the success of Batman Forever was misplaced. It was more a Jim Carrey movie than anything else. And after the mega-hits of Ace Ventura and The Mask back-to-back, his turn as the Riddler was the big draw of Batman Forever.

The thing is, not even Jim Carrey could save Batman and Robin. I have to say it again... holy crap. You know those YouTube videos of people reacting to watching gross videos on the internet? Just record comic book fans watching Batman and Robin and you'll get the exact same reactions. It's just pure torture. Every other line in the movie has some lame pun. I'm not kidding on that. Watch it and see. There are so many idiot choices they made for the movie, it's hard to enumerate them all. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze? Bane as a mindless brute who doesn't even fight Batman? Commissioner Gordon acting like a doofus? Alfred's niece as Batgirl? Bat-nipples? I want to down a beer every time I think about it... and I don't even drink!

You know what the one redeeming thing about Batman and Robin is? That there will never be another superhero movie as bad as it. The fans won't allow it. The internet has made it such that script leaks and fan reactions will steer a movie to the right direction most of the time. That's not to say there will not be bad superhero movies (i.e. Ghost Rider). There just won't be any AS BAD AS Batman and Robin. For a humorous take on all of this, once again we have "ItsJustSomeRandomGuy" with his usual brilliant action figure skits:

1/28/2008 - Spider-Man : One More Day Review

If you have an ongoing comicbook series that has run for over 40 years, eventually you are going to run out of stories to tell or the storylines will tend to repeat themselves or they will just become mediocre. You may ask how that can be with only one issue coming out a month and a whole army of writers over a period of years. Well, in the case of Spider-Man comic, its popularity led to various spin-off series such as Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, etcetera, etcetera. In the course of one month, there can be as many as 4 Spider-Man issues coming out each with a different writer, but each having to maintain continuity with each other!

Over the years Peter Parker has been through it all and matured through real-life trials and crises. He's made it through high school, college, fallen in love with different women, and eventually married Mary Jane Watson. There have been many "ground-breaking" changes and revelations involving Spider-Man, such as the "true nature" of his powers, the possibility that he was just a clone, and his unmasking before the world. Each of these plot twists were met with great resistance from the readers, with much criticism that the changes to Peter were out of character. I can't blame the writers to much, because as I've stated above, it's hard to be original when writing stories that fit within a 40 year history.

I do have to side with the detractors of the current storyline, though. Most comic book fans know about Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada's distaste for the marriage between Peter and Mary Jane. He claims it limits the kind of stories that can be told about Spider-Man. So with one fell swoop, he dissolves the marriage. But how does he do it? Do they get divorced? Does Mary Jane die? No. Instead, the marriage is erased from existence because Peter makes a deal with the devil. Okay, so Peter does it to save Aunt May from death, but still... a superhero making a deal with the devil? What kind of example does that make for kids? When does a deal with the devil ever go well? Didn't they watch the Ghost Rider movie?

This development has made a lot of fans angry. And you wouldn't like it when comic book readers are angry. :) The Angry Video Game Nerd has made a living out of geeky rants about bad video games, but we all know it's just an act. If you want to see a real angry nerd, there is no better example than this review of the Spider-Man: One More Day storyline.