Starting off on the Netflix front, Marvel's Netflix Television Universe has expanded and now we're on "Jessica Jones" Season 2 (film in conjunction with "The Defenders") which debuted the 8th of this month. I really enjoyed the 1st season of "Jessica Jones" and I'm sure we can all agree David Tennant's Kilgrave essentially made the show what it is, no disrespect to Krysten Ritter. The problem here however is that Jessica Jones is still a relatively new character to Marvel, making her debut in 2001 (which makes her 17 years old, 18 in May) and in comic book terms 17 years is still a baby and she has yet to accumulate an impressive rogues gallery of bad guys who can match her completely. However, this season seems to slow things down and deal with her origins as a super hero, a plot thread hinted at in the 1st season.
I like Jessica but she's hardly The Punisher and her damage makes her incredibly rough to relate to, at least to me. And I really had to examine what exactly isn't clicking with me about Jessica and I think it's her temper. Frank Castle was an unruly mofo but in the presence of innocent people he was always polite and genuinely a decent guy, Jessica just seems to be annoyed and frustrated with everyone. I get that she has attachment issues and prefers to keep everyone at arms length but that schtick can and will get old VERY quick if she doesn't evolve as a character. I'm not saying she has to be happy go lucky ALL the time, I'm just saying I'd like to see her character want to make that change to cleaning her life up and moving on, maybe attending A.A. I really wanna see her triumph over her demons and embrace her abilities to help people. I wanna see the Jessica that was in "AKA The Sandwich Saved Me". I really hope by the end of this season Jessica can put her past behind her for real instead of drinking it away, but we'll see.
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| Definitely a new low for her...hope she bounces back... |
Staying on Netflix let's talk "House Of Cards", Robin Wright is taking over for Kevin Spacey after his ousting due indiscretions that I won't get into but I think I finally figured out what's so off putting about having Claire take center stage. Aside from the fact that Claire doesn't have the same cunning and ruthlessness as Frank, it's the fact that characters seemed to gush about Claire almost constantly without seeing she's just as bad as Frank is. If I may, in the 1st Season their own security detail confessed his love for Claire, in the 3rd Season Freddy mutters about how he doesn't understand how Claire puts up with him (Frank), The Russian President seems to be obsessed with Claire and in more recent seasons Claire's approval rating has been higher than Frank's. I'm curious as to why because there isn't a scene where she appears to be congenial. Frank has had moments where he's made a fool of himself (The Vowel Game, anyone?) but Claire has never tried to fake being human.
I'm not saying anyone should be gushing about Frank, not at all, but Frank had interesting quirks that made him a compelling character. He was an older man congress man but he played video games, and his biting soliloquies told us exactly what he was thinking at all times. I doubt Claire's commentary on any situation would be as pithy as Frank's. This isn't to say I want Kevin Spacey back, maybe in some alternate reality where he didn't do what he did, I am saying I'd like the role to be recast with someone with the same chops, but that'd be an adjustment. Anyway, the current teaser for this upcoming seasons has Claire boasting that "We're just getting started." which is ironic because this will be the final season. I don't think I'm interested at all in where this is going, I think I'll just watch the 1st episode to find out what happen to Frank and then I'll be done, UNLESS something balls to the walls crazy happens that forces me to tune in.
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| "We're just finishing up." |
While we're on the topic of TV, "My Hero Academia" has announced it's 3rd Season and a trailer has been released, unfortunately this is for it's Japanese release, which I imagine it's English release won't be announced til much later. These days dubs are getting faster and faster to produce but still the wait is killing me! Considering "Dragon Ball Super" in Japan is almost finishing it's run while in America we're one story arc away from the current one (at the moment we're on The Goku Black Arc). No anime has become an instant hit with me as quickly as "My Hero Academia" and luckily I started watching it when both seasons were readily available. I'm ashamed to say I burned through them pretty quickly. But all hope is not lost, the mangas might be out for this current story arc and I'd love to get more of the story, in the same way I would with "Prison School" and "High School Of The Dead" and "One Punch Man"...which oddly enough, I think the manga series by print was cancelled but a digital manga still persists...weird. Anyway, I'll be here waiting with baited breath for the return of "My Hero Academia" for us English speaking folks.
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| Midoriya going Smash on these fools! |
Since we're on the topic of anime, is "Assassination Classroom" any good? I'm asking this because the premise seems...to be blunt rather goofy. My main problem is I have a hard time taking the central character (the big yellow thing) seriously, but who knows I could be wrong. Anyways, if anyone who's watching "Assassination Classroom" can get back to me I'd love to hear your opinion.
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| Seriously though...? |
Now on to movies, No, I haven't seen "Black Panther" yet, it's on the docket. Fatherhood and lack of people to watch the baby and also lack of mobility has decreased our (my wife and I's) freedom to go to the movies. Which is why we tend to stay home and watch Netflix or whatever I have on blu-ray at the moment. I'm so behind on everything and it's getting really frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love my son but we'd like some us time and sadly that's not happening and I'm starting to feel like I'm losing who I am...in short I'm turning into my mother. Since we're on the topic of lack of time, The Strangeverse Webcomic probably won't happen till much later and by MUCH later I mean like more than likely 5 years from now later.
The reasons why are of course my son requires a lot of time, and I suck at drawing. I've produced self made comic books before in the past but never anything I put out for public consumption and The Strangeverse webcomic will be my first public presentation of my artwork and storytelling and I'd like it to be at the very least decent. I showed one of my books to a friend and he just flat out refused to read it...which sucks but whatever. Again, my brother says everyone has their own art style and one isn't better than another but at the very least I should be able to draw dynamic movement and heads tilted upward or downward and at the moment I simply can't. Plus time to practice and get better is again at an all time low so...as it stand my artistic ability is stagnated right now and I have no clue when I'll be able to really dedicate time to making The Strangeverse Webcomic a reality, at the moment my ambition supersedes my ability.
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| And a smile from Sirius is about as positive as you can get! |
Unfortunately, we'll be discussing something negative immediately after. It's been announced that Warner Bros. has added a "New Gods" movie to their expanding (and quickly vanishing) list of movies being produced to help round on the *cough-cough* DC Extended Universe. I'm sorry but are they literally insane? At this point this is NOT a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to know who's running the ship over there and ask them on exactly what planet is releasing a New Gods now (and by now I mean later on) a good idea? Warner Bros. has had their heads buried firmly in the sand since the release of "Batman vs Superman" and now they're just trying to piss everyone off. In in order to spell out the actual mess Warner Bros. have found themselves in, let me elaborate: The New Gods is a whole other realm that needs time to breath a WHOLE LOT of set up before you can touch a stand alone with them.
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| Why did "Smallville" seem to respect these characters more than an actual movie studio with millions of dollars at their disposal?! |
And NO, Steppenwolf didn't even come close to introducing the concept of New Gods as I guarantee you no one outside of comic book fans even knew who or what Steppenwolf was. He wasn't a big bad hinted at and peppered throughout several movies like Thanos. We've known since the 1st Avengers movie that Thanos was pulling strings behind the scenes, we've heard his name and we've seen him speak and interact with others, the groundwork has been laid for him. "Justice League" rushed a New God out into the public and then presented a key piece of New God technology inaccurately to the point of unrecognizability and now Warner Bros. wants to explore the race of people which Steppenwolf comes from? With no lead up? No build up? No hinting...nope just "Hey, here's the New Gods!". Worst yet is I'm worried this will focus on The Forever People as opposed to Orion, because let's face it, Orion is kind of a dick bag. I can see Mark Moonrider being more of a protagonist people want to follow as opposed to Orion and having a band of young people going up against the evil hoards of Apokolips just sounds like something they'd do and I'm not impressed.
As I've said previously, I've given up all hopes for Warner Bros. DC Extended Universe and I doubt the long and eye-rolling list they've presented of movies "in production" will actually come to fruition and if they in fact do, this will without a doubt be single-handedly one of the BIGGEST failures in popular culture ever. At this point I want them to fail and fail spectacularly just so some MAJOR retooling can take place and they can get their heads on straight. That should've happened after "Justice League" failed to break a billion dollars but knowing them if they did fail spectacularly, they'd just double down on what they said previously and no...I'm done. The production stills of The Captain Marvel movie (still refusing to call him Shazam, Shazam is the wizard, Billy Batson is Captain Marvel) look good but too bad, so sad, too late. Here's to hoping for some good DC movies in my son's generation, until then my reaction to any Warner Bros. DC Extended Universe announcement will be...
Moving right along to some various news, I've written before about how I've gotten into board games and now I'm finally stepping up to the big leagues, a legacy game! Or for those of you outside of the know a campaign style board game. More specifically "Betrayal Legacy", a legacy version of "Betrayal At House On The Hill". The struggles with board games is finding a solid group to play them with and I finally think I have that group. We'll see how it goes, but I am REALLY looking forward to it! Anyways, that'll do it for me. I'll catch you lot later, Here's a GIF of what it's like waiting for the 3rd season of "My Hero Academia" for English dub.
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