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Steam Sale Recommendations
I meant to do this one earlier but forgot all about it. Consequently, if you are interested in any of these you are going to have to buy them pretty much now because this sale ends tomorrow, Thurs 23. I have all these games except Fallen Aces and plan on doing reviews on all of them. All of them have something in common, they are throwbacks to the glory days of 1990s FPS games. They are also all by New Blood,...
The Dark Herald Recommends: Shazam Fury of the Gods
So bad you’ll be begging for James Gunn reboot… - The Daily Beast In a drama this dumb and unaware, the buffed-up makeover seems like an insult to the same “inadequate” outsiders and weedy minorities the film pretends to champion… - Deadline Too derivative from previous superhero films and too goofy to present believable characters… - Don’t Care A sequel whose goofiness extends not only to its lame humor but its convoluted and senseless plot… -NY Times Bombastic and cacophonous, a relentlessly overstimulating carnival that...
FLASH: VICTORIA ALONSO IS OUT AT MARVEL
I'm trying to find my jaw. It was on the floor here somewhere. Apparently, Iger is still capable of making a good business decision... In times of great crisis anyway. He needed to blame someone for the disaster they are in at Marvel and for once he chose the right culprit. From That Park Place: "Victoria Alonso, the longtime and high-profile Marvel Studios executive whose time with the company dates back to the first Iron Man, has left the studio, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter." "The reasons...
Place Your Bets
Do you remember when I told you that the current plan for the new Star Wars movie was to star the following? Rey Chewbacca R2-D2 Baby Yoda And As Yet Unnamed Character to be Introduced in the Disney + Star Wars Show? Yeah. For those you lucky enough to not watch it, this was in most of the last episode. That's Katie O'Brien. Martial arts instructor, former cop, body builder and a lesbian with a wife. Disney is suddeny injecting her into everything and giving her...
Dumb-Dumb Mister
Reprinted without comment.
Marvel Doubles Down on Rick and Morty Writers
This artwork is so bad. Rick and Morty is a cartoon for grownups. It’s okay I guess, but it’s a cartoon for grownups and frankly a pretty overrated one. It’s not going to be remembered alongside the Simpsons, South Park or even Venture Brothers. And you can just forget about it being held up to any halfway-decent anime title. For those of you who have never seen it, don’t bother it’s gone way downhill in recent years but at its height, it was basically a...
The Antman 3 Leak
There is enough buzz about this that I felt I should say something about it. Here are the facts. About a month before Antman and the Wasp: Quantomania was released there was a script leak for it on Reddit. The script in question was a subtitle script. The thing the studio sends to foreign distributors so they can insert the subtitles in their country's language. The language in question was Portuguese, which all but guarantees that the leaker is...
Disney In Freefall (Part 2: Marvel)
So much wasted franchise in one picture Antman and the Wasp Quantomania is officially a disaster. Its third-weekend box office take is so anemic you’d think it was attacked by a vampire and after a manner of speaking, it was. Antman 3 will not break the $500 million mark in theaters. Every Disney Marvel movie after Black Widow crashed on takeoff, has lost money. Shang Chi, The Eternals, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Wakanda Forever and now Antman and Wasp Quantomania. The trajectory of...
Disney in Free Fall (Part One: Star Wars)
The second episode of The Mandalorian aired last Wednesday and I have yet to hear a peep out of Fort Mickey. Whenever the streamer studios have one of their exceedingly rare wins they screech it from the rooftops. HBOmax pounded its chest about House of the Dragon and The Last of Us. Paramount struts around bragging about Yellowstone’s numbers. Even Amazon felt the need to brag when The Rings of Power debuted (the numbers were a fantasy, but they felt the need to brag...
Arkhaven Spotlight: The Golden Age
My loyal Darklings know that their herald is not given to false or indeed any kind of modesty whatsoever. It is alien to my nature. I'm just not good at it and it's usually embarrassing for all involved when I try. Painful self assessment is another matter entirely. I can do that just fine. Consequently, when I say that John C. Wright leaves me so far in the dust as a writer that the dust has long settled, been...
Book Discussion: The Siege of the Black Citadel
When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in... Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come? -Robert E. Howard I was born into a world where an average boy’s upbringing would be viewed as terrifyingly savage by today’s standards. It was a world without the leash and safety net of a cell phone. We rode gravel byways on our...
The Sons of Hercules – The Barbarian Heroes
BUMPED: I got a special Barbarian-flavored treat coming for you tomorrow night. "Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered...
Heroes of Appendix N: Conan The Barbarian
BUMPED: I got a special Barbarian-flavored treat coming for you tomorrow night. Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered...
Chaos at Disney World Continues
One of the first things that Bob Iger declared upon retaking the Golden Mouse Throne was that THE MESSAGE would remain in place. Disney just needed to be more entertaining while they did it. The stupidity of restoring Bob Iger to the position of CEO of the Walt Disney Company after he created all the problems that the Disney company is suffering from will be taught in business classes for decades to come. His removal was always tenuous at best. Of the 12 members...
Teenage Mutant April O’Neil
Well, I knew it was going to be bad, and I didn't want to know how bad, but I do now. I wrote this a year ago. "Continuing their rocket-powered Thelma and Louise style Evel Knievel jump off of a cliff face, Paramount has now handed another crown jewel to somebody who not only can’t be trusted with it. But it is insanely obvious to everyone and his second cousin that he can’t be trusted with it." I will grant that twenty years ago, Seth...
This Might be Good News But Probably Isn’t
Jon Bernthal is joining the cast of Disney/Marvel's Daredevil. The reason there is the slightest hope it will be good is that Bernthal was on the record as only being willing to sign, if the character of the Punisher isn't damaged. It would have to be the same guy that was on Netflix. And he didn't sign with Disney for years. The reason it will be awful is it will be Disney/Marvel and they can't make anything good. They just can't. Look for...
Blogs and Ends: The Kalends of March Edition
Okay technically not the Kalends but not the Ides either. Quit complaining, you nearly didn’t get a post tonight. FIRST Seth Rogan’s long-dreaded Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show finally dropped its first trailer. It was so close to good. Right up until we get to see the new April O’Neil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFpl4nG3bj8 Yep, Antifa O’Neil is now race-swapped, body positive, and beautiful in a different way. Granted I’m not a mutated amniote so maybe they do find her attractive, I hope not but it’s a Seth Rogen production so it...
Weekend Box Office
There's good news for Jonathon Majors and bad news for Stallone. Creed III is performing well above expectations. The third film in the Creed saga is going to close out its opening weekend well above the $100 million mark globally, making it an all-time best opening weekend for the franchise. Michael B. Jordan's third outing as Adonis Creed was only budgeted at $75 million. Considering that MGM appears to have spent very little on the marketing, it is...
Book Discussion: Destroyer of Worlds
The next book in this series is going to press soon so I dug this old review up. It's hard not to envy Larry Correia's career. He was one of the last self-published authors that were able to go mainstream. Monster Hunter International was rejected by everyone in the business to include Baen books. Correia, being an accountant, crunched the numbers and worked out that if he self-published MHI he would make about five to maybe ten thousand dollars, (which is...
Harddrive-by: Hogwarts Legacy
In fairness I need to start with this statement: I am not the target customer for this game. I never got into Harry Potter. My interest level was at best Culturalist and that was when the first Harry Potter wave was at its height back when the last of the movies were coming out. I wouldn’t even be a Flirt except I have children that are at Intentionalists level of interest. I know the major characters, the setting, and the houses, and I am...
Interview with The Legend
Heels vs Babyface hosted a discussion with The Legend Chuck Dixon. Fascinating stuff. Yes, this is the one Disney had blocked for making fun of Peter Pan and Wendy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eVskwMWT6o Discuss on Social Galactic
Yeah It’s Gonna Suck: The Mandalorian Season 3
The start of the new season is no better than lackluster. This isn’t a surprise given the state of the trainwreck that is LucasFilm. The second season ended with a huge bang. Luke Skywalker, the real Luke Skywalker, not the broken-down hobo from Third Trilogy, made a cameo that blew the doors off. People were actually signing up for Disney Plus on the basis of it. It looked like Star Wars was starting to turn itself around. Which ended the second Gina Carano was fired...
Disney World’s Self Rule Has Ended
I'd seen it repeatedly but never had a clue what RC stood for The Reedy Creek Improvement District has now been formally dissolved and with it the Walt Disney company’s insane self-rule privileges. Given that WDW covers two counties and various precedents of settled Florida law, the creation of a new one was unavoidable. You will note that at no time did I ever say there wouldn’t be a Special Taxation District covering Walt Disney World’s property. The press is desperately trying to spin...
Appendix N Heroes: Holger Carlson
Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson is the most influential book you’ve never heard of. Okay, given my readership that’s probably not true but for the gen-pop audience it certainly is. This book is vitally integral to the Dungeons and Dragons canon.* It’s not the backbone of it, that is still The Lord of the Rings. But it is, however, the very heart Appendix N. I’m quite serious about that. The spirit of this book is present in every player who has...
I Don’t Owe Them a Chance
What little patience I ever had with Ya Boi Zack is exhausted. He used to be a reasonably good source for keeping up with everything wrong with the comic book world. He was always a Gamma but lately, he’s been cucking out completely. He only attacks people on the Right for pursuing the culture war. Never the Left. He’s pretending that executives at Woke corporations like Disney, don’t care about fans criticizing their propagantastic entertainment products. That it is the Right that is just too political. Uh-huh,...
Antman 3 or Cocaine Bear, Which Blows More?*
I originated the role! How was I not cast?! While Cocaine Bear did just barely beat out Antman 3 in the domestic box office take on Friday, Antman 3 pulled ahead on Saturday and Sunday but Cocaine Bear was nipping at his heels the whole way. Weekend take for the third and now final Antman movie was a cadaverous $32.4 million on its second freaking weekend! The first movie in Marvel’s Phase V was down 70% from last weekend. That is not...
Warner Brothers Discovery Earnings Call
CEO David Zaslav just held Warner Brothers Discovery’s first quarter earnings call for 2023. This was the first earnings call that was mostly the fruits of his labors. There is still about a year’s worth of inertia from the pipeline setup by the previous regime. However, this is the first time that Zaslav was expected to show positive results of his regime. Keep in mind this is an investor call, not a media event. There are some facts that it is illegal for Zaslav to misrepresent. There...
Is There a Spiderman Deal?
This week there was a flurry of reports about a new Sony/Marvel Spiderman something starring Tom Holland being in the works. It’s been all over the fan sites and Polygon (which is more of an anti-fan site). Except there hasn’t been an announcement. It has been better than a year since Spiderman: No Way Home was released. The third of Holland’s Spiderman outings raked in nearly two billion in box office receipts worldwide, and easily shot past that line when you factor in the...
Captain Harlock Creator Leiji Matsumoto Passes at 85
Matsumoto's work was Generation X's entry drug into the world of Anime. The body of his work is some of the most legendary in the field. It's fair to say that he is up there with Osamu Tezuka. Matsumoto's work includes such epics as Space Battleship Yamato, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and Galaxy Express 999. From Clownfish TV: Leiji Matsumoto was born as Akira Matsumoto on January 25, 1938 in the city of Kurume Fukuoka, which is in the southern part of Japan....
The Dark Herald Recommends: Lockwood & Co
This one was nowhere on my radar. I just saw an interesting thumbnail on Netflix Trending and decided to give it twenty seconds before surfing on. The opening scene started with tense music setting the tone as a London taxi stopped in front of a private residence. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl get out and are clearly repeating battleplans they have memorized but are going over one last time. They are walking quickly, the camera cuts to a waist-high shot and both...
Paramount’s Body Positive Superheroine
No, I'm not making this up at all. The heifer heroine is called Zephyr. I thought Zepplin might have been more appropriate. This comic book that you have never heard of is called Faith. It's published by Valient and I had go check to make sure they were still in business. Yeah, they are again, at the moment, but it's the usual thing these days of using comic books as a pitch for movie and TV projects. I'm a...
Was All of The Rings of Power AI Generated?
"The orcs’ response was a deafening onslaught of claws, claws, and claws; even Elrond was forced to retreat. “You are in good hands, dwarf,” said Gimli, who had been among the first to charge at the orcs; it took only two words before their opponents were reduced to a blood-soaked quagmire, and the dwarf took his first kill of the night. The battle lasted for hours until two of the largest Orcs attempted to overwhelm Aragorn. When they finally stopped,...