Tag: comics

Using two lockers at the gym is a dick move

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seldom does a day go by where at least once, I don’t think to myself how great it would be if I were Luke Cage.  A fairly unsuspecting guy who can blend in anywhere he goes, but he’s really practically invulnerable and has super strength and for the most part doesn’t ever have to be afraid of anyone because not just anyone can actually harm him with fists, knives or even bullets.

Seriously, if I had the capabilities of Luke Cage, I probably wouldn’t go off and become a Defender and try to be any sort of a superhero.  Superheroes get super villains, and then there are a whole lot of superhero responsibilities that come with being one.  No, I’d just want to capitalize on the confidence of knowing that I’m pretty much invincible and start doing all the things I think and say in my head, and say them out loud, since all fear of physical retribution is off the table if one were Luke Cage.

If I saw someone littering outside, I could actually not be reluctant to call out and reprimand them and then force them to pick up their shit.  They could step up all they wanted, and even throw the first punch, but when I’m Luke Cage, their fist would get shattered, and then they’d have to do what I told them, lest I grab them by the collar and personally walk them to some police or something.  Or if I’m on public transportation, and someone is blasting music out of their earbuds that everyone can hear, I can tap them on the shoulder and ask them to turn it down, and when they escalate the situation from their rotten defiance, I can wait for them to try and land the first blow and then dominate them without any fear of harm.

The list of things that would be great if I were Luke Cage could go on for days honestly, but of all the things that could possibly actually get this particular post off the ground, it would be calling out people at the gym, that for whatever reason it is, feel the need to occupy two lockers in the locker room to store their shit.

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Remembering Adam West

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ll be honest, the vast majority of times I hear about a media personality dying, I don’t really care.  Actors, musicians, performers, guys like Chris Cornell, Roger Moore, Chuck Berry or Bill Paxton come to mind.  Some, I feel like I should have appreciated more than I did, like Mary Tyler Moore and Don Rickles, but they were also of a different time than my own, and I never sought them out later in life.  Often, I’ll see stories of their passings flash on the web and social media, and sometimes I’ll recognize their names, but other times, I quickly come to the conclusion that as unfortunate as the loss of life may be, I didn’t really know much about them, have any sort of emotional, nostalgic connection with them, and not really care and be off with the rest of my days.

Adam West is a different story however, because I am a nerd who was and is a fan of Batman in just about every possible iteration of the property.  And despite all the jokes throughout history about a jaded and resentful portrait of Adam West, resentful of the passage of time and the laundry list of other actors who have portrayed the character, there was always a shred of truth to his underlying message: he’s Batman.

As campy and corny the 60s television series was, it was still classic and iconic television that will probably never be touched in terms of formula and execution.  As a kid, I wanted to mock it and goof on how campy it was, but when the day was over, I realize that I had sat through two episodes of the show and found myself enjoying it.  Every day after elementary school was the same formula:

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When a movie is treated like more than a movie

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really planning on going out and seeing Wonder Woman.  Not because I’m a sexist pig that refuses to support a film with a strong leading woman, but because I’m just not really that interested.  One, it’s a DC Comics film, and I know there’s a fallacy of predicting the future based on the past, but if the last few stinkers were any indication, it’s probably not going to be that great.  And two, the monumental amount of attention and press that this film has received, regardless of it was actually about the film or not, has put this movie on a plateau of expectations that I just don’t think can realistically be reached.

Had Wonder Woman just been released like any other comic book movie, I might’ve had more interest in seeing it.  I mean, this variant of Wonder Woman was introduced in such an epic manner, giving a modicum of life and interest to the steamer known as Batman v. Superman, that it really shouldn’t have been too difficult to expect that a stand-alone Wonder Woman should be just fine.

Now I know that as a man, it’s not really my place to speak on behalf of women, but I still have a lot of opinions on how the buildup and arrival of this movie has basically taken on a life greater than the film itself, and I think that it’s kind of unfair to the film and those who worked on it, that it’s being treated as anything other than a feature film that people will pay money to hope to be entertained by, and little else.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Gal Gadot is awesome.  If anything at all, I feel like I’ve been a fan of hers longer than most sudden Wonder Woman fans are, because I’ve enjoyed her throughout the later Fast & Furious films, where she plays Gisele, who isn’t just eye candy, but another strong female protagonist not defined by her role in the lives of men.  I know she served in the Israeli army, which explains why she’s so rock hard and convincingly tough, because she actually is, and nobody needs to give me an elaborate dossier for me to know that I appreciate her.

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I did nothing but pretty much watch television all weekend

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And it was everything I thought it could be.  No really, for the vast majority of my weekend, I watched television primarily, and for the first time in a while feel like I actually had a nice relaxing weekend.

Prior to this past weekend, I’ve had to go into work at least once per, in four out of the last five weekends, and was just coming off a stretch where I’d gone into the office twelve straight days.  Working overtime for the betterment of the team, keeping shit on schedule and because the season occasionally dictates it isn’t really that big of a problem, but the sheer volume of my work compounded by a faulty machine that failed more frequently than a Volkswagen was putting me into a situation of rapid burnout, and this past weekend wasn’t so much of a deserved weekend off, it was absolutely necessary.

Needless to say, I slept in both days, which relatively speaking, means I slept like eight hours, instead of like six.  Granted, my body is so accustomed to waking up at like 6:30 a.m., I hit points where I always wake up between 6:30 and 7:30, panic about having overslept before realizing that it’s the weekend and then crawl back into bed with tremendous relief and try to go back to sleep and hope the animals didn’t hear any commotion and start trying to wake me up.

And when you’re feeling rested and caught up on sleep, everything afterward feels leisurely and relaxed.  Coffee tastes better.  Going to the gym for a run felt pleasant and not like a nuisance chore.  Taking the dogs out is more leisurely without a clock over your head on when it’s time to head to work.  Going out to hang with friends is more enjoyable when you know that there’s no drop dead cutoff time to get back home and get to sleep in order to get enough rest.

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I liked Iron Fist.  Sue me.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the first time in a while, I had a weekend where I had really nothing planned at all, so I made the best of it by pretty much doing absolutely nothing at all.  Meaning, I took the opportunity to sit around and watch a bunch of television and movies that I’d been putting off for a while.

I’ve made it pretty clear that I’ve been pretty fond of Netflix’s Marvel catalogue, and throughout the last year, I’ve watched and enjoyed both seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.  The objective for the choices of properties are obviously setting up an eventual run for The Defenders, but in order to get all the players onto the field, it was also obvious that Netflix would have to create and release a series about Iron Fist.

There was one obstacle that everyone including myself was a little dubious about the latter needing a series to be made about, and that’s simply the fact that among the Marvel Comics roster of characters, Iron Fist is pretty much a fucking lame property.

Such isn’t solely my own opinion, it’s often a very broadly accepted one.  Numerous writers have tried to varying degrees of failure, but the bottom line is that Iron Fist is a really, really weak property for Marvel Comics.  Almost completely incapable of carrying a series, about himself, Iron Fist found the most success when paired with other, stronger characters, in a complementary role, like Luke Cage

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Late to the dance by like, 18 years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but apparently Netflix has announced plans for a Castlevania animated series that will be released later in 2017.

Too bad Simon Belmont has already been immortalized in animated form, since like 1989, on Captain N: The Game Master. 

Okay, I just really wanted a reason to post a picture of Captain N Simon Belmont.

Anyway, I’m a little dubious about this idea, since video game-based animated series are almost always starting on an uphill battle, and the fact that Castlevania hasn’t really been relevant since like… Symphony of the Night, depending on one’s interpretation and dedication to the litany of Pokévania games that were released for various Game Boy platforms.  A part of me thinks that the choice of Castlevania is like television producers wanting to do something, needing reputable source material, and someone in the room thinking “I know, I used to love Castlevania, the games were hard as shit, but I’m sure we could spin it into a story,” and then one or two people recognizing the name and concept and then an idea snowballs before everyone begins to blow each other.

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Attempting to kill The Killing Joke

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the holidays, I took a little bit of time to watch the animated rendition of Batman: The Killing Joke, widely regarded as one of the most memorable Batman comics ever made.  Despite curmudgeon Alan Moore’s best attempts to discount its merit, there’s no denying that it’s a genuine classic that puts an exclamation point on the dark undertones of the series, and shows a very serious and vicious rendition of The Joker and a storyline that distances it miles away from the safeness of The Animated Series and the campiness of the 60’s Adam West show.

When the film debuted over the summer during Comic-Con, there was a lot of buzz in the negative sense about its execution; something about an artificially added storyline, damaging of female empowerment, and a very non-canonical relationship.  In other words, typical nerd outrage over something that a lot of people didn’t agree with.  Although the details of these particular elements did sound a little suspect, I didn’t really want to come to any conclusions without seeing it myself; after all, with the return of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy to reprise their TAS roles, maybe this could be an epic retelling of an epic comic story.

Well, after watching The Killing Joke, put me in the camp of comic nerds who believes it was overall crap.

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