Comic Con

I didn't get to update about comic con because it was insane. Too much to do, and so little time to do it in. I went to most of the big television panels, and almost everything Joss Whedon I could get into. It was fantastic. I also go to take a look at the new DCU Online game that they're developing, and holy crap is it awesome. I might even get a PS3 just to play it, but that's years down the line. Basically it's like City of Heroes/Villains mixed with WoW mixed with comic book awesomeness. The NPC's are the major heroes and villains of DC comics, and you get to make your own character with their own type of super powers. As time goes on you develop and can get more powers. You fight big bad's like Lex Luthor and Brainiac and run around Metropolis and Gotham kicking ass. It's pretty much a wet dream for a DC fangirl like me, and I got to run around for fifteen minutes as a speedster. That was fantastic.

The Force Unleashed comes out in a few weeks. My Playstation 2 is busted, as is my X-Box 360, so I'm basically just working on a Wii now which is fine, but it may become more obnoxious when I have no games left to play. Ugh. I don't have the money to replace them, unfortunately.

I saw TDK for the fourth time. It was excellent as always.

Girl Games

Okay, so it's been awhile since I posted, but I'm back to rant about something that drives me f'n crazy.

Girly girl designed games.

Listen, I'll admit I play Cake Mania and like Petz and the Sims and whatever else they like to say is made for girls, and I'm happy to be female. I just would like once and awhile for someone to stop acting like men and women are completely different species. Yes, we're different, but you know what, ALL humans are different from one another. It's not just gender that separates us, but race, age, religion, background, tastes, thoughts, needs, etc. I love gory games. I love shooting the head off some noob with a shotgun at close range, and sneaking around with Snake in MGS. I love Wii sports, DDR, pretty RPG's, and I used to be obsessed with the game Creatures where I got to raise these adorable little monkey things. I have an eclectic taste in things, and I would like to believe that every human being has the right to love more than one kind of genre. So when people are like 'oh let's made a video game about gymnastics or ponies or Hannah Montana because all girls love that' I want to hit them with a fucking truck.

Seriously.

There are girls like that. And news flash, there are BOYS who also like that, although they're not allowed to say so because society would call them gay or weak because of it. The point I'm making is that games do not necessarily have to be for boys or girls, they can be for whoever wants to play them. And yes, I'm sure numbers say that one gender or one age likes a certain thing, and they are constantly trying to get more money by marketing to everyone. I'm all for getting girls to play video games more often, and to believe that it's totally cool to like games and not tom boyish or loserish to love them. Boys are not supposed to like 'sensitive' games, and girls aren't supposed to like 'bloody' games, but you know what, we do. We love to knock the shit out of someone with Sub Zero, and boys occasionally like to make a sweet little Sims family. The gender war will never be over because people and corporations like to encourage it on and on. UGH.

And that's my rant of the night.

Comic Con

I am heading to Comic Con today and will be there for the weekend. Shall have awesome updates hopefully involving what I see/hear!

The Dark Knight

There is ... listen, since I saw the movie I have tried to put into words exactly how I felt about it. I do not think I am capable of doing a real review, because if I try to be critical all I end up doing is gushing instead. There is no way I can be unbiased on this subject, because I am a Batman fan ... and this movie was the first thing I've seen which really represented my hero to me. This was Batman, Gotham, the Joker, etc., this movie brought out all the reasons that I love Bruce Wayne and why I think he's the best character in the DC Universe. This is a man that fights darkness and evil on a level that other heroes cannot comprehend. They fight villains on an obviouis level, but what Batman deals with is the corruption and moral ambiguity of every person's soul. Bruce suffers constantly with the fight for his own soul, and walking the edge between the good and the bad has never been more openly terrifying as his every day struggle. It's just ....

The Dark Knight was fantastic. If you have never read a Batman comic, then watch this movie and you will understand. There are decades of history behind Batman, but this will tell you the core of the character and of the world he lives in. He fights in the gutters for the kind of hope that decays and dies with each passing minute. The Gotham Knights are more than just heroes, they represent the best and worst of humanity itself. See, I'm gushing.

The movie is worth seeing -- more than once if you enjoy it. Heath Ledger ... there are no words to say. Yes, he deserves an Oscar. Yes, he stole the movie. Afterwards, I hugged my friend and said "They gave me the Joker I prayed for." This is the character that exists as the anti-thesis to Batman, a creature of chaos where he is a symbol of control, yet they are more alike than different. Just genius on Ledger's part, and honestly, he just lost himself in this role. If they had kept this actor a secret, a la Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, I never would've guessed it was him.

Aaron Eckhart also stole the show, and this is partly what I was afraid of. The movie isn't just about Batman, it's about the city and the world he lives in, and Harvey Dent is the living metaphor for the tragedy of Gotham City. Eckhart played him gently, sincerely, and perhaps deserves more praise than he is getting. Bale continues to represent my hero with humility, sorrow, and the weight of a world on his back. He does it very well, and again, he too is being overlooked due to the extraordinary performance and hype of Ledger. Still, without everyone in this movie it would've lost a necessary part, so they all deserve praise and recognition.

It's just ... jeez. I'm trying to express it and I can't, so here it is. The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie I've ever seen, and I don't know if anything can ever surpass it. I also don't know if I want anything to ever surpass it so I can always remember how I feel right now and smile.

Go and see it, silly!

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight reviews have started coming in, and they're all remarkably positive. You have no idea how exciting this is for me, and I cannot possibly put it into words. Batman is my favorite character of all comics, and possibly I would compare him to some of my literary favorites like Macbeth or Ford Prefect. This movie promises to be dark like nothing else, probably depressing, and that no one wins. I am so excited I might scream.

Hellboy II is also being praised, and I am somewhat happy for that. I have always enjoyed Hellboy, and I really did like the first movie. Having Guillermo del Toro on it ... that man is a bloody genius. I saw him talk at Comic Con in New York. His discussion about CGI was so fascinating and right on that I became a lifelong fan of his. He refused to get lazy about CGI and said that there was nothing more obnoxious than using computer graphics when it is just as easy to make costumes and create something genuine. Love it. He did a fantastic job of that in Pan's Labyrinth, when it used CGI in necessary places but tried to be real in a great deal of others. I respect that.

I saw the Incredible Hulk and was generally amused but not terribly impressed. It was far and above better than the last one, and it was certainly not terrible. Liv Tyler brought down the movie with her dead eyed readings and breathy cluelessness. Ugh. Poor Ed Norton. He did a great job, however, and I did enjoy the film. I wish there would be a bit more reflection on his part ... more introspective commentary I suppose. There is a lot of 'we can't let them get my blood, they'll make more monsters!' He seems tormented, but ... eh. I'm so used to Batman's open dismay and pain that I want to see it more often. I'm a freak.

Wanted came out this week and I look forward to seeing it, but I will not expect Mark Millar's comic. I expect a fun action romp.

I will be doing a 411 for FanLib this week about DC's Crisis on Multiple Earths. And all the other Crisis storylines. It is already driving me crazy, but I will probably be posting a link to it on here since it is so fangirl/geek related.

Until next time, Superman sucks and Batman is a God.

The Spoiler

Alright, so, Shortpacked the webcomic did a cute little new comic about Batman's recent drama involving Stephanie Brown aka the Spoiler. For those of you who don't know, to quickly sum it up, Stephanie was Robin's girlfriend who Bruce briefly took as a new Robin just to piss Tim off, and then promptly dropped her when Tim wanted to come back. Then she kind of caused a huge dramatic gang war in Gotham and was beaten to a pulp by the Black Mask. She "died" on the table thanks to Leslie, Bruce's surrogate mother figure, thus blackening her good name in the Batman comics.

Upon Stephanie's death, she got a larger fandom than ever before due to the righteous fury of the female readers. Yet again this was a Women in Refrigerators kind of story, where the female is brutally killed in an effort to rile up the male protagonist. Also, Bruce never created a vault in her honor which he did for the other Robin's -- specifically Jason Todd. It was considered ridiculous and hateful and sexist that she was not given the credit of being a Robin and mourned, where Tim grieved longer and more obsessively over his friend Connor than for his girlfriend.

So they brought her back. Apparently Leslie pretended to kill her so she could start over again, mend her wounds, and decide what she wanted out of life. Then she decided she wanted to be a superhero and came back and .....yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn. Listen, I don't like Spoiler. I think she was an average if below average character with little personality. They were constantly trying to set her up with interesting plot points -- Tim won't tell her his name, oh look, his teammates are trying to kill her, unwed teen mother, etc -- but it just never took. Maybe it is because they wrote her horribly, or maybe it is because Stephanie was just a boring character. Whatever the reasons, I didn't care when she died and I didn't care if they never brought her up again.

I could do an entire different rant about bringing dead charactesr back, and I probably will some day when I can do it without foaming at the mouth, but it's endlessly irritating that she's come back due to 'popular demand.' Do I think it was stupid that they used her as just another victim and then ignored her very existence? Yes. Do I think there are other female characters deserving of more time and characterization? Hell yes. Oh whatever. She's back and la di da the world will be a less sexist place because of it. Riiiiight.

Anyway, go to Shortpacked.com for the comic that inspired this eye rolling post. It's funny and true. I actually read the Spoiler and Robin #1. Wasn't as bad as I expected. She's strangely more appealing now, they've infused her with more charm in one comic than she had the entire time before. Well played. We'll see how it goes. Who knows, six months from now I could be like OMG SPOILER IS ACTUALLY A GOOD CHARACTER THAT'S SO AWESOME I'M GLAD SHE IS BACK. Or maybe, like with Jason Todd, I steadily become more and more irritated with her very existence.

DS

So it's been a few days since I posted last, and that's because I finally got my hands on a Nintendo DS. This is the system I chose in the end, and my Apple flag seems to be flying high these days. I have a blue and black one, and I picked up Sims 2 Pets and Justice League Heroes. Neither are very good games, but I liked them enough to give it a try, and they were easy to learn how to play. The Sims 2 Pets has the classic failing of all Sims games and that means repetition, repetition ... repetition. While the Sims computer game has a wide world to keep your attention at least for a few months, the Pets game can probably only boast a few days. Still, I didn't mind pretending to be a vet for awhile. I'm easily amused like that.

Justice League Heroes I just started up, and I'm already sulking because I know it will be far inferior to the Marvel Unlimited game. DC has had a continued difficulty branching between the comics and other mediums, and this never fails to shock me. I've always been a DC girl at heart, and it is terribly frustrating to see them struggle so often with different geek areas. The game is straight forward and button mashing for the first few levels, and no real story to speak of so far. Sigh.

There are several other games I plan to get though. I want Final Fantasty 3, Mario Kart DS, and possibly the Zelda Phantom game I've heard so much about. The DS system itself pleases me although I heard that the battery charger can get ridiculous after awhile and not last long at all. This has not bothered me yet, so I will concern myself on it later. I hear that Final Fantasy 4 is coming out with 3-D graphics and voice acting. Did you hear that? It's my squeal of delight. When they finally release Final Fantasy 6 with awesome graphics and voice acting ... instant joygasm.